This week has seen my social media interactions explode with all the postings and podcasts from the 2025 RSA Conference, held annually in San Francisco. It is also the fifth anniversary of my non-attendance. Many old friends and colleagues were posting pictures of groups of cybersecurity professionals and selfies from the podium in cold, drafty ballroom sections. Mobs of tchotchke-hungry attendees swarmed around booths that crowded acres of exhibition space. It was all so familiar, yet somehow now remote and strange.
During the first couple of years I stopped attending, I was contacted by a few old colleagues who wanted to know why I wasn’t there. This year, no one reached out. I guess the word is now on the street: I have retired.
I sat back in my desk chair and reflected on my first experience with the world of technology conferences. I was a young Air Force captain working in a government agency. Well, I was young then, I suppose, but I had been enlisted before gaining my commission, so I was technically older than most other captains. I felt I had a good idea and set about writing up a paper on the topic I was working on for my DoD employer. I submitted my proposed report only to receive a rejection a couple of weeks later. My paper was deemed “not technical enough” for the conference. My experience at conferences was apparently over before it had even begun.
Undeterred, I took my paper and its attached rejection slip over to Dr Steve LaFountain, a well-known computer security expert. He told me to leave it in his inbox. A couple of days later, Steve called me into his office, and I saw my paper, but with a new cover sheet. He said, “I read your paper and felt it could be a valuable addition to the conference. I walked over to the review committee, presented my opinion, and now you’re on the agenda. Good luck.”
Let the Show Begin
That was how I was published for the first time in the Proceedings of the 1991 National Computer Security Conference (Volume II). I attended the conference, which was held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. I was able to stand at the podium and present my findings. I was scared and overwhelmed, but it would turn out to be the first of many such presentations I would give.
That same year, the very first conference with the RSA name was convened, featuring just a few participants and a single panel discussing a topical cryptographic issue. Eventually, these two conferences would converge to become the juggernaut that hosted over 41,000 attendees and 600 exhibitors in 2025.
Over the past 34 years, I have attended approximately 25 conferences. I was a speaker for half that number. I don’t remember exactly, because part of my retirement was getting rid of that big stack of badges I used to hang on the wall. Like most work mementos, they just evolved into another pile of dusty memories. They were left in the trash bin when we downsized and moved for retirement.
I am not moping about these memories or feeling low - time marches on, and I am in a good place, both physically and mentally. The recollections, however, prompted me to spend a couple of hours at my laptop searching for old friends and colleagues and seeing if we could reconnect, even if only online. What was rather startling was the number of obituaries I found in my research. Now that was eye-opening.
What I found startling was that it appeared most didn’t enjoy a break between work and the hereafter. Of course, this was a purely anecdotal observation, and it carried more weight for those former coworkers who had already passed away. But it still helped me realize how fortunate I have been in my career.
When you are in the military, all your barracks mates, friends, and fellow service members will talk about retirement. “It all counts toward 20 [years retirement]” was a popular canard. It was assumed many of us would stay in for the minimum retirement option of 20 years’ service, then go open a bait shop on a lake in Louisiana and drink beer all day. As it was, I was offered early retirement at 17.5 years of service, and I still had a young family to support. So, off to the corporate world I went to work for nearly 30 more years.
Retirement Found
And then retirement found me. My last RSA Conference was in 2020. It was the last week of February that year, just as the pandemic was winding up. My job was terminated weeks later as grocery stores were laying down direction markers in their aisles and mandating masks. I spent the next year searching for a new opportunity, as they say on LinkedIn. Instead, I found a dead hiring scene as companies and individuals struggled to grapple with Covid hysteria. It was depressing.
One summer day in 2021, I wandered into my financial planner’s office for advice. We both sat looking out the window for a while. I shared my frustrations with the job hunt. He listened patiently, then said, “Have you considered retiring?” I looked up, startled. “You mean, I can?” I asked. “You’ll have to manage your budget, but I see no reason you need to keep working. Why not sell off your place here, move to Florida, and wear flip flops the rest of your life?”
That was the best financial advice I've ever received. Now, it’s fun to watch the new generation excitedly talk about their conference talks and vendor parties. Me? I’m cheering you all on from my lanai.
