Hospitals, schools, libraries, and government agencies can't stop running, yet most of them protect themselves with small teams and tight budgets. Cindy Lepore, Manager of Member Relations at OSHEAN, explains how a nonprofit consortium serving 160+ anchor institutions across Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts gives lean organizations enterprise-level network, cloud, and security capabilities.

She shares what an all-hands-on-deck response looks like when a member hits trouble, why network visibility can turn weeks of troubleshooting into minutes, and the one shift she wants every member to make: treat security as an organization-wide culture, not a box the IT team checks for insurance or compliance. Plus a preview of OMC26, OSHEAN's annual member conference, covering quantum, AI, cybersecurity, compliance, and governance.

Key Events

00:00 Welcome & Guest Intro

01:00 From T-Mobile to OSHEAN

02:00 Serving Members, Not Customers

03:00 Security on Lean Budgets

05:00 Building Unbreakable Relationships

07:00 Security Beyond the IT Department

10:00 Previewing OMC26

12:00 How to Connect with OSHEAN

• Tip worth stealing: Security can't stop at the IT department. Make it part of the culture at every level and in every department, not just something you deal with when an insurance assessment or compliance requirement lands on your desk. No silos.

• Worth a look: OMC26, OSHEAN's annual member conference. https://oshean.org/events/omc26/

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Mark Montalto spent 14 years selling for Cisco before moving to OSHEAN, Rhode Island's nonprofit network consortium, where schools, hospitals, libraries, and towns get carrier-class network, cloud, and security services they could never buy on their own. He explains how a 25-person nonprofit competes with deep-pocketed commercial carriers: a network that isn't oversubscribed, the same rates for every member, firewalls and web filtering built in for K-12, and a NOC that knows each member's network.

Mark also walks through what the federal BEAD broadband program got right, why its 25% match and insurance requirements shut out small bidders, and how a shared Wi-Fi model is saving low-income and senior residents hundreds of dollars a month. He closes with why the consortium model matters more, not less, as AI, cloud, and cyber threats widen the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Key Events

00:00 Welcome & Guest Intro

01:00 Lessons From 14 Years at Cisco

04:00 From OEM Sales to Nonprofit Mission

07:00 Competing With Commercial Carriers

12:00 Proving Value to a Skeptical CIO

13:00 Building a Cybersecurity Office

14:00 BEAD Money and Digital Equity

16:00 Wi-Fi for Low-Income and Senior Housing

18:00 A Secure Statewide Municipal Network

21:00 Consortiums in the Age of AI

26:00 OMC26: Complexity Is a Team Sport

• Tip worth stealing: Shared infrastructure can close the digital divide at the building level. Using a Wi-Fi template built on OSHEAN's fiber, Newport Housing now supports more than 1,000 low-income and senior dwellings, with 700 to 1,000+ devices online at any moment and residents saving $200 to $400 a month.

• Worth a look: OMC26, the OSHEAN Member Conference, November 12-13 at Bally's and Rhode Island College. https://oshean.org/events/omc26/

Connect with Us:

• Check out our website: https://www.mtmg.eu

• Learn more about the amazing software we use to create these podcasts (Descript): https://get.descript.com/mtu0tl2zr3g7

• Want the same microphones we use? Get a discount (use coupon code "MTMG" for 10% off): https://www.maono.com/?ref=ulcbmcjk

• Suggestions or want to appear on a future episode? Email: podcast@mtmg.eu

• Need expert help to maximize your IT investments? Reach out: info@mtmg.eu

• Don't forget to subscribe to the Podcast and follow us on LinkedIn! https://www.linkedin.com/company/mtmg-eu

Dave Phillips, Chief Information Security Officer at OSHEAN, the nonprofit consortium serving more than 160 hospitals, schools, libraries, and government agencies across Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, joins Paul Knittle to explain how to build a cybersecurity program when you can't do everything at once.

He covers why frameworks like NIST CSF 2.0 should be run as a program rather than a checkbox, how an honest self-assessment surfaces the gaps that matter, and why reporting progress against a framework tells a board more than a list of security tools. Dave also shares how he approached the job as OSHEAN's first CISO by treating the organization like one of his own customers and ranking every finding by probability and business impact, and why he sees AI helping attackers find weaknesses faster than defenders can fix them.

The conversation closes with a preview of OMC26, OSHEAN's member conference on November 12 and 13, 2026.

Key Events

00:00 Welcome & Guest Intro

01:00 Lessons from Armored Fiber

03:00 Frameworks Are Not Checkboxes

07:00 Start Small, Be Honest About Gaps

09:00 Security Is a Leadership Issue

11:00 Chipping Away at the Stone

13:00 Deciding What to Defend First

16:00 AI on Attack and Defense

18:00 When Generative AI Is Just Noise

22:00 What to Expect at OMC26

• Tip worth stealing: Run an honest self-assessment against a framework, rank each gap by how likely it is to be exploited and how hard it would hit the business, then fix the highest-risk items first. Dave calls it chipping away at the stone, and says three to five years of it gets you to a mature security program.

• Worth a look: OMC26, the OSHEAN Member Conference, November 12 and 13, 2026 — Dave previews the security track on frameworks, GRC, and asset management. https://oshean.org/events/omc26/

Connect with Us:

• Check out our website: https://www.mtmg.eu

• Learn more about the amazing software we use to create these podcasts (Descript): https://get.descript.com/mtu0tl2zr3g7

• Want the same microphones we use? Get a discount (use coupon code "MTMG" for 10% off): https://www.maono.com/?ref=ulcbmcjk

• Suggestions or want to appear on a future episode? Email: podcast@mtmg.eu

• Need expert help to maximize your IT investments? Reach out: info@mtmg.eu

• Don't forget to subscribe to the Podcast and follow us on LinkedIn! https://www.linkedin.com/company/mtmg-eu