Ms. Meara has worked in information technology for over 30 years, specializing in cyber security at electric utilities for the past 14. Ms. Meara’s skills include solutions development and deployment, project management, requirements gathering, system architecture and design, technical training, auditing, and audit preparation.
Since joining NST in 2004, Ms. Meara has worked with clients to improve their cyber security by implementing the appropriate mix of technological, procedural and cultural cyber security solutions. Ms. Meara is well versed in evaluating an organization’s security posture against industry standard best practices (ISO/IEC 27002, NIST SP800-53, and industry regulations such as NERC CIP) and using risk-based assessments to decide on mitigation measures. Ms. Meara has helped large and small energy companies to achieve success in spot checks and audits of their compliance with the CIP Standards. She has conducted training classes, prepared program and procedure documents, gathered evidence, prepared Technical Feasibility Exception (TFE) submissions, performed gap analyses and mock audits, assisted in audit preparation and SME interviews, and worked with clients to effectively integrate CIP compliance tasks into day-to-day operations.
Prior to NST, Ms. Meara spent 8 years as a Senior Consultant with Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN) and subsequent owners of BBN’s Internetwork Consulting group (i.e., GTE Global Professional Services, Baltimore Technologies, and Betrusted.) Ms. Meara delivered project management, training, and systems integration services to customers in the US, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Europe. Solution areas included Public Key Infrastructure, Certificate Management Systems, and Virtual Private Networks.
Ms. Meara began her career as a software engineer in Australia and was selected as one of 30 Australian engineers to work with Plessey in the UK to develop a secure communications network for the Australian DoD. Upon return to Sydney, Ms. Meara was Engineering Manager responsible for database networking products at the Australian Centre for Unisys Software. During 6 years at Unisys, she chaired the ISO Remote Database Access committee, consulted on the design of an ISO RDA prototype at Nihon Unisys Ltd in Tokyo, and was a member of NIST’s OSI Implementers Workshop 1989 thru 1990. In 1995, Ms. Meara relocated to Massachusetts as Senior Engineering Manager for Digital Equipment Corporation. She managed groups responsible for software development, product release, and support of Digital’s networking software products.
Ms. Meara holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
