The Louisiana National Guard and LSU have agreed to a land swap at LSU’s Innovation Park that will enable the guard to develop a new unit devoted entirely to cybersecurity.
The Cyber Coordination Center, as it would be called, will build on an existing collaboration between LSU and the guard on cybersecurity issues, and could ultimately be the centerpiece for a cybersecurity cluster of researchers, companies, and national security experts at Innovation Park.
“We have tremendous things going on at LSU in the cybersecurity arena and they are bringing in money and researchers,” says Charlie D’Agostino, who heads Innovation Park. “We recently got Twistlock out here and LED is working to get other cybersecurity companies to come here so this could be a really big thing. Once you develop a cluster it tends to grow itself and attract other people and companies that want to be a part of it.”
Twistlock, a Portland, Oregon, firm that develops cybersecurity software, opened an office at Innovation Park earlier this year.
LSU’s Stephenson Disaster Management Institute, under the leadership of Jeff Moulton, has become a nationally renowned center for training and research in the area of cybersecurity.
The Cyber Coordination Center, if approved by Congress, would be an expansion of the guard’s existing Armed Forces Reserve Center at the Innovation Park campus. It would also facilitate the development of a solar farm, which would improve the energy resiliency and redundancy of the facility, says Col. Ed Bush, Louisiana National Guard Director of Public Affairs.
Under the terms of the land swap, which has already been approved by the LSU Board of Supervisors though not finalized, LSU will exchange 15 acres of undeveloped land directly in front of the Armed Forces Reserve Center, which is visible from Nicholson Drive, in return for a five-acre tract that fronts an access road from Nicholson Drive that will eventually be improved and become the new entrance to Innovation Park.
Because of the acquired frontage as well as the increased economic development potential in cybersecurity, exchanging 15 acres for 5 was an easy trade for LSU, D’Agostino says.
There’s no timeline or price tag for the proposed center yet, and Bush cannot say how many full time and reserve guardsmen might be stationed there. However, he says the guard is optimistic Congress will authorize the project and that it could get underway as soon as 2020.
