I visited my parents in Houston this summer. As always they had a pile of my possessions which they exhorted me bring back to the Pacific Northwest. In one box I found some old papers, including letters from prospective employers to whom I had applied during my late undergraduate years. I wasn't so surprised by the IBM and Boeing acknowledgement cards, but I honestly don't recall applying to the NSA. The below letter demonstrates I did, though.
Interestingly Morris K, the correspondent on the letter, has a LI profile that aligns with this era https://www.linkedin.com/in/morris-ketterle-sphr-pmp-95769710/.
Why apply to the NSA? I do recall reading the Puzzle Palace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puzzle_Palace,
although I'm not sure if this was prior or after applying. Perhaps that was part of the inspiration to apply to that enterprise? It wouldn't be the first time that a book had inspired me vocationally https://vzimmer.blogspot.com/2012/10/did-book-inspire-your-choice-of.html, I suppose.
Fast forward a couple of decades to a face-to-face meeting as part of drafting NIST 800-193 https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/193/final
(and the never-quite-finished 194 https://vzimmer.blogspot.com/2021/12/wither-network-boot.html) at an office building outside of Ft. Meade, MD. In introducing myself to one of the NSA employees in attendance I said "hi, I'm Vincent Zimmer. I don't think we've met" to which I received the reply "oh yes, we've heard of you." I suppose that retort could be interpreted many ways, either as acknowledgement of someone who had made impacts in infosec or as recounting tales of the the loud kid in class who often gets detention or ....
Well, that's enough for a summertime July blog post.
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