The Cybersecurity Association of Maryland Awards

 A master of science graduate in civil engineering from Virginia Tech, Wayne Schepens is the managing director of LaunchTech Communications in Baltimore, Maryland. He leverages his more than 20 years of experience in cybersecurity to oversee and run the firm’s strategic accounts, agency staffing, direct sales, and operations. For his efforts, Wayne Schepens and his team were finalists in the Cybersecurity Association of Maryland Awards.

The nonprofit Cybersecurity Association of Maryland, Inc. (CAMI) was formed in 2015 to drive the growth of the cybersecurity industry in Maryland and advocate for its members and industry rights and benefits. It also works to educate the public and members on the industry, and build a solid cybersecurity community and network in Maryland. CAMI holds annual awards to recognize and honor individuals and businesses who have contributed significantly to the growth of cybersecurity in Maryland and upheld and supported CAMI's mission and vision.

The various award categories include Cyber Warrior Woman of the Year, Cybersecurity Champion, Cybersecurity Company to Watch, and Defender of the Year. Others are Innovator of the Year, Diversity Trailblazer, and Resource of the Year.

The Resource of the Year award is different from the others, as it recognizes a non-cybersecurity entity, such as a business, academic institution, or government agency that has contributed significantly to the industry through its services, products, or mission. Recipients usually accomplish this through funding, legal services, insurance, media entities, or academic institutions with unique cybersecurity programs.

The Global Excellence Awards from Info Security Products Guide

A Maryland-based business leader with extensive experience in cybersecurity, marketing, and product positioning, Wayne Schepens has served as managing director of LaunchTech Communications since 2015. In this role, he oversees a company that assists tech and cyber brands to enhance their visibility and credibility among potential customers. Recently, Wayne Schepens and LaunchTech announced that the company was named Agency of the Year for Cyber and Info Security in the 2020 Global Excellence Awards program.

Now in its second decade, the Global Excellence Awards program is presented by the Info Security Products Guide (ISPG). With categories highlighting top companies, products, and people, the awards cover all facets of cybersecurity and information technology and stand out among the top recognitions in the IT field.

The Agency of the Year for Cyber and Info Security award highlights the work of the world's top IT marketing and public relations firms. ISPG also presents Global Excellence Awards in related categories, including Communications or PR Team-Department of the Year and Achievement of the Year in Video, Commercial, Advertising, and Short-Film.

All the winners of the 16th annual Global Excellence Awards were announced in early March 2020. The Grand, Gold, Silver, and/or Bronze winners in each award category have been invited to attend the 2020 Global Excellence Awards Dinner and Ceremony, which will be held Monday, October 19 in San Francisco.

Nominations for the 17th annual Global Excellence Awards are currently open and will be accepted through December 20, 2020. More information about the awards and the nominating process is available at www.infosecurityproductsguide.com/global-excellence-awards.

Three Effective Fielding Drills for Baseball Players

The recipient of a master's degree in civil engineering from Virginia Tech, Wayne Schepens possesses more than 20 years of experience in cybersecurity and serves as the managing director of LaunchTech Communications. A former collegiate baseball player, Wayne Schepens maintains involvement in the sport through his role as the coach of a junior varsity high school team. 

Fielding the ball is an integral part of playing baseball. Here are three drills that coaches can use to help:

1. Distance throw - Have players line up at the end of a series of cones 10 yards apart and extending to the outfield fence. Each player throws three to five balls and earns points for the balls that land in the target area between cones. This drill should improve both throwing power and accuracy. 

2. Backhand drill - Emphasizing positioning, this drill has the coach roll a ball to the side of a player so the player can scoop it up with the glove in a backhand position. The player should then throw the ball to the nearest base. 

3. Double-play flips - Best for second base players and shortstops, this drill begins with the coach or another player hitting a ground ball to the middle of the diamond. The player closest to the ball should catch it and then flip it to the other player, who should be covering second base.

The Importance of Active and Transparent Crisis Management and PR

Based in Baltimore, Wayne Schepens serves as the managing director of LaunchTech Communications, a public relations and marketing agency with a focus on emerging technologies. In January 2019, Wayne Schepens sat on a panel of experts for the American Marketing Association Baltimore chapter's two-part blog series titled “Communications Tips from the PR Pros: Crisis and Reputation Management.”

The discussion, which involved several public relations and marketing executives, centered on a society in which fake news and instant news notifications, as well as a distrust of politicians and corporations, has created an acute need for creative PR strategies. This is particularly the case in situations requiring crisis communication and brand management that will quickly steady companies that find themselves on shaky ground in the eyes of the public.

As Mr. Schepens describes it, his company LaunchTech works primarily in the cybersecurity sphere, with clients forwarding urgent requests for help in educating the public in a credible manner when crisis situations occur. He emphasized the importance of transparency and a proactive approach. By staying sincere and responsive in addressing the issue at hand, rather than reacting defensively, companies will be viewed as operating in good faith, he said.

Providing Insight and Relevant Content within Reputation Management

A respected presence in the Baltimore entrepreneurial community, Wayne Schepens is the founder and managing director of the marketing and PR agency LaunchTech Communications, where he draws on two decades of experience in the cybersecurity industry. In a recent panel discussion hosted by the Baltimore chapter of the American Marketing Association, Wayne Schepens joined other leading PR executives in the region in addressing the topic of crisis and reputation management.

One aspect of an effective approach to reputation management that Mr. Schepens drew attention to concerns the competitiveness in the technology industry. With credibility and company reputation as ever-present factors in a firm's success, his clients must meet the nuanced public relations needs of leading-edge organizations working in areas such as retail, finance, media, and the government.

Just as with consumers, these organizations are seeking validation and strong reasons to trust. This can take the form of third-party endorsements, which may include referrals and testimonies. It also encompasses analyst reports and articles in well-regarded publications. The bottom line is that companies that succeed are able to position themselves as thought leaders who can provide innovative solutions to complex challenges.

Hitting for the Cycle in Baseball

Following nearly five years as vice president of W2 Communications in Baltimore, Maryland, Wayne Schepens founded LaunchTech Communications in 2015 and continues to serve the company as managing director. Beyond his responsibilities at LaunchTech, Wayne Schepens enjoys spending time with his children and staying active by coaching baseball.

In baseball, a player can reach base by error or by being walked by the pitcher in addition to hitting a single, double, triple, or homerun. A player who records at least one of each of these hits in a single game is said to have hit for the cycle. If the player also hits the cycle in this exact order, it is considered a “natural cycle,” one of the sport’s rarest achievements.

In Major League Baseball (MLB), hitting for the cycle is relatively rare. Curry Foley recorded the first professional cycle in 1888, and 323 additional cycles have been recorded since, for an average of about 2.5 cycles per season. Brock Holt of the Boston Red Sox completed the cycle against the New York Yankees during the 2018 American League Division Series, the first postseason cycle in league history.

John Reilly, Bob Meusel, Babe Herman, and Adrian Beltre are tied with three career cycles each, while five players have recorded two cycles in the same season. The natural cycle has only been achieved 14 times in the history of professional baseball, most recently in 2006 by Gary Matthews, Jr. No player has hit for the cycle with an inside the park homerun since 1943.

Zuul Successfully Launches in IoT Sphere with LaunchTech Support

Based in Maryland, Wayne Schepens guides LaunchTech, an emerging tech PR and marketing agency that assists clients in achieving strategic results in competitive marketplaces. As reported in the company blog, Wayne Schepens’ firm had an eventful 2018, starting with independent selection by the research firm Expertise of LaunchTech as one of its Top 15 PR Firms.

The company also guided the launch of the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) startup Zuul, which completed a successful Series A round of $300,000 in seed funding in January. Also taking part in the funding round were TEDCO, local investors, and the MasterPeace LaunchPad. The latter investor is a technology accelerator and Zuul is the first startup to be spun out of it. 

As described by Zuul founder Edward Stanford, the IoT firm seeks to bring the “robust defenses” standard in the mainstream IT market to areas such as building automation, smart transportation, and industrial control systems. The end result is that IoT configurations will be optimally secured in ways that effect process efficiencies and cost savings.

Cybersecurity Market Set to Hit $248 Billion in 2023

An alumnus of Virginia Tech, Wayne Schepens has over 20 years’ experience in startups and business development. Wayne Schepens is leveraging this experience to lead LaunchTech into the global cybersecurity market, which is experiencing continuous year-over-year growth. 

In 2018, the global cybersecurity market reached $152 billion, up from $137 billion in 2017, according to Statista. At the forefront of this growth are businesses and government institutions looking to make their digital operations effective and secure. Now, the research firm MarketsandMarkets predicts the market will grow to $248 billion in 2023, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 10.2 percent. 

According to the research firm, while all segments of cybersecurity, including data-loss prevention, intrusion detection, anti-malware, and compliance management will see an increase in demand. The biggest leap forward will be in the encryption segment. This segment will record the highest annual growth rate for the next five years as more businesses seek encryption solutions to safeguard sensitive data from theft. From an industry perspective, healthcare will see the highest demand for cybersecurity solutions, followed by financial services and insurance.

Strategies for Engaging Thought Leadership Debate Panels

As the managing director of LaunchTech, a tech-focused marketing and public relations agency, Wayne Schepens has transformed the firm into the industry’s fastest growing cybersecurity communications agency. Under Wayne Schepens’s direction, LaunchTech executes credibility campaigns that promote their executive clients as industry experts through public relations strategies such as thought leadership panels.

For many companies, participating in thought leadership panels are ideal opportunities for sharing industry-advancing information while raising brand awareness, promoting the company’s authority in their sector, and identifying potential collaborators or clients. Before submitting a panel to a conference, firms should consider the following points.

Topic Relevance - Vendors in the fast moving technology sector must constantly make high-stakes decisions. The most useful panels bring together experts to discuss an area where many companies are mulling changes. Some examples are customer data protection policies, tech-centered ethical dilemmas, and cloud migration. The panel should provide attendees with enough information to help guide the decision-making process.

Panel Expertise - Once the topic is decided, the panel should feature leading figures who can make arguments for both sides of the question. It is important that panelists do not solely express their personal views, but also use their background knowledge and experience to describe any advantages and disadvantages of various approaches. An experienced moderator should also join the panel to keep the conversation focused.

Audience Response - Thought leadership panels shouldn’t be a passive experience for attendees. Organizers should schedule an adequate amount of time for audience members to react to the presented arguments, ask questions, and seek clarification.

LaunchTech - A Top PR Firm in Baltimore

Wayne Schepens has worked in cybersecurity for more than 20 years and now serves as the managing director for LaunchTech Communications in Baltimore, Maryland. Working with a strong team of staff and executives at LaunchTech, Wayne Schepens has used his talents to help guide the company to becoming one of the preeminent PR firms in the Baltimore area. 

Earlier this year, research company Expertise identified LaunchTech Communications as a public relations company of excellence, naming it as a Top 15 PR firm out of 168 total in Baltimore. The ranking comes in the midst of a banner year for LaunchTech that has seen it raise the profile of several clients, including Ntrepid, which was featured in Consumer Reports magazine, lending its expertise to an article examining phishing scams on the Google Docs platform. 

LaunchTech was also able to help Denim Group secure a featured spot in a Reuters piece about Google’s Titan technology and also connected several other clients with CyberDefense Magazine in featured article content. To learn more about LaunchTech and its services, visit golaunchtech.com.

LaunchTech Seeing Strong 2018

An experienced security professional who has been in the field for more than two decades, Wayne Schepens serves as the managing director of LaunchTech Communications, a role he has held since 2015. As part of a diverse team of professionals at LaunchTech, Wayne Schepens helped lead the company to a strong first half of 2018. 

At the beginning the year, the company helped guide the launch of a new Internet of Things (IoT) startup known as Zuul, which began its seed phase of investment funding. LaunchTech was able to build a strong public profile and presence for the company by leveraging its media network contacts throughout the state, ensuring solid news coverage in Maryland for Zuul, which had been named Start-Up of the Year by Information Security Products just before making its media push. 

Later in the spring, LaunchTech worked on behalf of 10 different clients during the RSA 2018 cybersecurity conference, helping these companies arrange briefings with dozens of media outlets and leading analysts. LaunchTech is rolling out its Launch Tips monthly series, which will focus on providing simple and practical tips for firms trying to spread their messaging throughout their respective marketplaces.

Mental Advice for Pitchers

In addition to his work with LaunchTech Communications, Wayne Schepens enjoys baseball. Wayne Schepens likes to study the ways in which baseball players develop their speed, agility, and mental stamina for the game. 

Pitchers can be greatly improve if they focus on the mental aspects of the game. As initiators of the action of every play, pitchers have a great deal of control over the game. However, their role is typically finished once the ball is in play, unless a ball is thrown straight back to the mound. Good pitching, therefore, requires a strong focus on what a pitcher can control.

With that said, a clear, actionable plan, such as throwing a specific type of pitch or aiming for a specific location, will go much further than if a pitcher just focuses on the end result. However, pitchers can also benefit greatly from focusing on the future and pitching with conviction. Throwing the wrong pitch well will yield better results than throwing the right pitch while nervous or doubting oneself. Also, focusing on the next pitch rather than focusing on the last one helps. Furthermore, pitchers who begin to feel frustrated should take a moment to re-center themselves before pitching again.