What used to be a handful of overly optimistic animation reels of hackers in dark rooms has now become hard reality: every business, every school, nearly every household in Arizona depends on functioning systems and those systems must be defended.

At the heart of that defense lies a growing corps of student-interns from Pima Community College who are working hand-in-glove with the states cybersecurity ops center.

Governor Katie Hobbs acknowledged the college's effort Thursday morning. Through this program, the Department of Homeland Security is hiring interns and placing them with the Regional Security Operations Center, she said.

One of those interns, Christopher Shaw, saw his career path pivot toward cyber defense recently. This means everything to me, this is my career change here, a

See Full Page