Top NASCIO 2025 Takeaway? The Need for a Workforce Playbook.
By Judd Robins, Executive Vice President
It’s not surprising that AI dominated the majority of the conversations at NASCIO 2025. Whether you’re in the public sector or private, everyone is scrambling to figure out how they can best leverage the promise of AI to drive efficiency, innovation and growth at scale.
Budget constraints, cybersecurity and modernization were also areas of top priority. But the main through line between all of these discussions was the continued need for skilled talent. Yet a report by Govern for America mentioned that the problem isn’t a lack of talent, it’s matching talent to roles that is.
I disagree.
Reframing the Talent Question
When discussing this issue with my peers between sessions and networking lunches, the need for talent was less about volume or pipeline and more about budgets. It’s a common pain point I hear as a cybersecurity consultant at TekStream when establish security operations centers (SOCs) for public sector agencies.
There simply isn’t enough budget to outcompete private sector salaries when looking to woo top talent, even more so when considering the cost of setting up a SOC with best-in-class technologies. The issue with this line of thinking is that it assumes the talent shortage problem is only a public sector one. It’s not.
Recent estimates place the global cybersecurity talent shortage at more than 4 million and growing. Sure, AI can provide cover for more entry-level needs, but keeping up with the increasing sophistication of AI-driven cyberattacks still requires skilled human talent.
Just last year, Microsoft detected more than 600 million cyberattacks targeting its clients, with the majority aimed at public sector agencies. And by 2027, IDC predicts that AI will be behind the majority of cyberattacks experienced by 95% of nation states worldwide.
But if these points aren’t salient enough to highlight the systemic talent shortage we’re all facing, consider a recent industry letter penned by 250 CEOs. In it, they emphasize how requiring computer science and AI education in today’s curricula could unlock $600 billion in economic potential each year.
Paving the Path Forward With a Whole-of-State Approach
Public sector leaders know they must get creative with attracting and retaining talent. There was no shortage of conversations around this fact, particularly related to finding AI talent. However, my biggest takeaway was the need for a workforce development playbook.
One that secures the next generation of talent that also solves for the 10 priorities outlined by NASCIO.
For me, that solution is taking a whole-of-state approach. Rather than operating in siloes, public and private sector entities can come together to solve their top challenges — sharing resources to present a unified front against cybercriminals while developing the next generation of talent.
Higher education institutions can provide the talent and sandbox to power a shared SOC model. Federal and state agencies supply the funding and connectivity to enable shared threat response across all participating entities. And the private sector provides the framework and technology to make it work.
At TekStream, we believe this model is a viable solution to our industry’s top challenges. It inherently addresses the growing financial, time and resource barriers that typically hold public sector leaders back while enabling private sector and state leaders to build centers of excellence with a growing talent base.
Not Just a Concept, a Model That Actually Works
For the past three years, my team and I have seen the benefits of this approach firsthand.
We piloted our whole-of-state model in public-private partnership with Louisiana State University (LSU), New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and our technology partners Splunk and AWS. The framework we created pairs workforce development with a unique cost-deferment model.
In the case of higher ed, we enhance the traditional tiered curriculum by providing students with just-in-time training via our co-managed SOC service. Students gain credit hours and a dashboard of activities that help them to enter the workforce faster as mid-level cyber analysts with AI technical skills upon graduation.
Higher ed institutions, in turn, benefit from lowering costs and long-term ownership as students become proficient in mitigating threats. Meaning our involvement decreases as student proficiency increases. Our model enables additional cost reduction by reducing the number of required licenses to power the SOC.
Another benefit of participating in the model is access to a growing library of shared assets. This enables public sector leaders to collaborate across state lines, empowering them to further enhance the protection of their digital assets by leveraging best practices, insights and peer research.
Innovation Without People Is a Non-Starter
Whether it’s modernizing applications by moving legacy Oracle systems to the cloud, setting up an AI task force, or looking for ways to optimize spend, skilled talent is the key to meeting all of the priorities on NASCIO’s 2025 list.
Not focusing on developing tomorrow’s workforce today will likely result in continued brain drain, increased costs and a slower pace of innovation — sentiments from the Govern for America report that I do agree with. But first we have to agree that the talent shortage challenge is not a public or private sector issue. It’s ours.
Therefore, it stands that working together is a mutually beneficial way to move forward.
Contact us to learn more.
About the Author
As Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Judd drives the overall strategy and revenue growth for TekStream consulting services. He leads territory campaigns to boost customer awareness and solution delivery quality, helping TekStream become a top partner in the cybersecurity and cloud industry. Judd has extensive experience in increasing market share in competitive technology industries, working in the Fortune 1000 and Public Sector space. He holds a Bachelor’s in Management Information Systems from Virginia Tech and lives in Atlanta with his family.