Hardshell CEO Andrew Schoka served on the Private Sector Capabilities panel at the Central Virginia Critical Infrastructure Protection Forum, held August 25 at Piedmont Virginia Community College's Bolick Auditorium in Charlottesville. He was joined on the panel by Ben Stinson of Anduril and David Forbes of Booz Allen Hamilton. The forum was the first event in a recurring series convened by the Central Virginia National Security Alliance, an initiative of the Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development. Members of the Virginia General Assembly selected critical infrastructure protection as the opening topic.
Thomas Crabbs of the Virginia Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs Office served as master of ceremonies. The FBI Richmond Field Office opened the program and the 91st Cyber Brigade delivered the keynote. Representatives from CISA, the Virginia State Police, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, the Virginia National Guard, the University of Virginia, PVCC, regional localities, and Central Virginia water and wastewater utilities filled out the room.
Much of the discussion centered on water and wastewater systems: aging equipment, the modernization work already underway across the region, and the case for building security into that work rather than adding it afterward. A recurring theme was jurisdiction, including when to call the Virginia State Police, when to involve the National Guard, and when to request federal resources. As 29News reported from the forum, one takeaway was that some participants had not realized how vulnerable certain systems could be.
Hardshell's contribution came from the AI side of modernization. Utilities and municipalities are starting to put AI to work on operational telemetry, maintenance records, engineering drawings, and customer data, often through retrieval systems wired directly into those sources. Security attention still lands mostly on the model. Hardshell's position, and the point Schoka brought to the panel, is that the exposure sits upstream in the data layer, which is why datasets need to be scanned and hardened before they are used for training, fine-tuning, or retrieval. Schoka is a former Army cyber warfare officer who spent seven years in offensive cyber operations for the DOD.
The alliance plans to continue the series on national security topics at the local level, and PVCC intends to use what comes out of these sessions to shape curriculum and workforce training. Hardshell is headquartered in Charlottesville.
Central Virginia Critical Infrastructure Protection Forum event page →
29News: Regional forum focuses on protecting water systems from security threats →
Cover image: the Bolick Center at Piedmont Virginia Community College, where the forum was held. Still from 29News/WVIR coverage of the event.