End Users '20 under 40' 2014—Nick Weber

Nick Weber, 35

Compliance auditor, Western Electricity Coordinating Council, Salt Lake City

At WECC, Weber is responsible for coordinating and promoting reliability of the electric system in western states from Canada to Mexico. He conducts security audits at power plants, substations and other facilities and provides outreach services to ensure that all critical assets are secured.

What inspired you to get into the security industry?

First, at 18, I worked for the U.S. Forest Service in wildfires. I was in the ROTC, and then deployed to Iraq for over a year. After that, I transitioned into private security and got into retail. I needed to get into a place where I was helping people.

If you could have any technology you wanted, without regard to budget, what would it be?

There are a lot of things out there. I was at the ASIS show in Atlanta. There were so many things there. For me, it was like taking my 5-year-old to Toys 'R Us. But what I would like to look into is the convergence of physical and cyber security and tapping into social media as an intelligence tool. There's a lot of intelligence out there and social media monitoring taps into that.

What's your biggest physical security challenge today, and what do you think it will be five years from now?

It's the convergence piece, getting physical security and cyber folks to mesh. The biggest thing is breaking down the barriers. If we don't get this to mesh sooner than later it will be a bigger issue than ever. We visit 30 to 40 companies a year, and the biggest thing is breaking down the barriers. We've got ex-cops and military on the security side and skateboarders on the IT side. Both have to understand how breaches can be used against them and work together.