Justin Amerson

Justin Amerson is a cybersecurity consultant for Beth Israel Lahey Health, out of Boston, MA, and he is the owner of Southern Tier Cyber Training Center, a CompTIA and EC-Council authorized delivery partner & training center. He relocated from Denver to NY in January of 2020, for his previous position at Corning, Inc. where he was a Lead Cybersecurity Consultant and IT Security Analyst protecting the network perimeter. It was the resiliency and sense of community he witnessed throughout the Southern Tier of NY during the pandemic, which convinced him that was where he wanted to finally plant his roots.

Justin Amerson earned his B.S. in Information Technology with a dual emphasis in networks and security from WGU in 2014 and his M.S. in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance from WGU in 2019.  He is currently enrolled at Capella University, in their Doctor of Information Technology program.  Justin currently holds the following cybersecurity certifications: Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP - ISC²), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM – ISACA), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH – EC-Council), Certified Network Defender (CNDv2 – EC-Council), Certified Hacking Forensic Investigator (CHFI – EC-Council), CompTIA Network+, Security+, & Project+.  Justin has also held multiple other certifications from CompTia, Microsoft, Cisco, Juniper, and CIW.   

Justin’s first career was in the restaurant industry, working his way up from bussing tables and washing dishes to Executive Chef.  In 2010 he decided it was time to make a career change, so he left the restaurant jobs behind and began his career in IT.  He chose this field because he knew it would be like getting into the aviation industry in the mid-1900s.  He went back to school and began doing remote systems and network management for a Canadian MSP.  Justin has also held positions as a Senior Threat Hunter, Senior Information Security Engineer, and Network Security Engineer for companies like Dish Networks, CenturyLink, and Charter Communications.  Like his restaurant career, Justin believes that being able to do a little bit of everything well is more valuable than being able to do one thing greatly.

While cybersecurity is a passion for Justin, he is also passionate about music and video games.  He is an avid collector of vinyl records and enjoys DJ’ing at local sporting events, like the Elmira Pioneers’ home games.  Justin is also passionate about saving animals and has two rescue dogs, which are both pit-bull mixes.