It took a decade for Chad Lanctot to finish his undergraduate degree, and for good reason: Lanctot was in the U.S. Coast Guard and was taking online classes while he actively served. It was tough going but once he was done and retiring from the Coast Guard, he knew that more higher education was his future.

When Will Biggs left the United States Marine Corps after 10 years of service, he started a job hunt that proved to be a bit rougher than he had anticipated.

“I was looking at county jobs and had probably applied to at least 15 positions, and nobody gave me a chance until the public libraries did,” he said. “I started working at the library and I realized I liked it.”

Featured student: Clancy Anderson

Location: Bristol, Tenn.

Education: Training as a submarine nuclear reactor operator in the Navy, and an undergraduate degree in history from Eastern Connecticut State University

When data are valuable products stored behind closed gates, monitoring those gates are people such as SIS alum Ole Villadsen (’15).

Villadsen works at IBM as part of the cyber security team; his role is to support incident response investigations by providing intelligence support, and he is also building a database of threat information.

“I love it, it’s great to be able to do both the hunting and the farming. Hunting in terms of supporting the investigations, and the farming is building out the database and making sure it’s a usable tool to support investigations,” Villadsen said.

Featured Student: Jared Uncles

Current job: TSA – Transportation Security Officer for TSA at McGhee Tyson Airport

Location: Originally from Keyport, New Jersey; moved from Missoula, Montana, to Knoxville to attend the SIS program.

Education: Bachelor of Arts in History, University of Montana

Past jobs: Transferred from the same position at Missoula International Airport prior to moving to Knoxville. Before that, was in the Army for 2.5 years before getting injured and being medically discharged.

Featured student: Technical Sergeant Jeremy Horner

Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Current job: US Air Force Wings of Blue Parachute Team at the United States Air Force Academy. “We teach cadets how to skydive and how to be a leader. They’ll do about 400-500 jumps with us, doing things like jumping at football games and air shows.”

Past job(s): Test parachutist at Edwards Air Force Base in California, working for special tactics training squadron teaching combat controllers who to jump out of planes and take over enemy airfields.

Family: Married with four daughters, ages 8, 6, 4, and 2 months.