First post

At the end of last school year, I started a checklist of things to accomplish by the end of this school year for my first LinkedIn post. I slowly updated my Discord bio as I completed each objective below: - Pass the OSCP (OffSec Certified Professional) Exam - Pass the CRTO (Certified Red Team Operator) Exam - Advance to CPTC (Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition) Globals - Place top 3 at the DoE 2025 CyberForce Competition - Advance to the National CCDC (Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition) Last July, I passed the OSCP in just 6 hours and earned a perfect score by the 12-hour mark. I am especially thankful to Antonio Punturiero for this opportunity. The following month, I passed the Zero-Point Security Ltd CRTO exam in 8 hours, achieving a perfect score in 10. In the fall, I founded the CyberEagles Competition Club at Tennessee Tech to help students train on more advanced topics than were being offered in the other clubs. At the same time, I competed in CPTC and CyberForce. Our CPTC team (which, fun fact, had three Landon's: Landon Crabtree, Landon Foister, and myself) placed 1st at regionals, the first time in Tennessee Tech history, advancing to the Global competition! The very next weekend, we traveled to Chicago for CyberForce, placing 2nd nationally out of nearly 100 teams and 1st in the Red Team category, both of which for the second year in a row. In January, I had the opportunity to tackle the new OSCP+ exam, where I managed a perfect score in under 4 hours. Then came the final and most important challenge: CCDC. In February, my team competed in the Southeast CCDC Qualifiers competition, where we placed 2nd out of 38 teams. We had the opportunity to advance to the regional competition where, once again for the first time in Tennessee Tech history, we placed 1st and advanced to the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. This was one of the toughest competitions I have ever been in, and was very proud to have won this. Thank you Chris Fischer and TJ O’Connor for the most fun and well-run competition I have ever seen. My checklist was finally complete. So what next? While CCDC will be the last time I compete in a collegiate cybersecurity competition, I hope to give back in the future. I hope to get the opportunity to volunteer for red teams for other regions, and maybe even for the National CCDC red team one day. I hope to spend my last year of college learning and researching things that interest me. There are so many people that I could thank along the way: all of my team members (Nate Dunlap my GOAT), the volunteers for each of these competitions, CEROC at Tennessee Tech University for funding our path, and many others. I can’t name everyone here, but please know how truly grateful I am for your help during this incredible year.