HCC cybersecurity program helps student secure IT internship

Feb 21, 2019

Jan Lukas Baur Vidal is a man on a mission.

The 21-year-old HCC Southwest College student is making all the right moves toward his dream of a career in cybersecurity.

Vidal, who immigrated to the U.S. from Zurich, Switzerland, said he wants to do his part to protect the world’s IT infrastructure from malicious attacks.

“They have hacked into almost everything,” the first-year cybersecurity major said. “Right now, there is so much personal information on the black market. Most likely your credit card number and other personal information are somewhere for sale. My plan is to learn something in IT and networking and eventually move into a cybersecurity role.”

Thanks to his HCC cybersecurity education, Vidal is taking a step closer to his goal this summer with an internship at Kinder Morgan in Houston. There, he will get some first-hand experience in telecommunications and IT.

One of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America, Kinder Morgan owns an interest in or operates about 84,000 miles of pipelines and 152 terminals and its pipelines transport natural gas, gasoline, crude oil and carbon dioxide.

Vidal said he learned about the internship at a career fair at the HCC West Loop Campus last November. After an interview, he was offered the position in January.

“My heart was very happy, definitely,” he said. “The first thing I did was call all my friends in Switzerland and let my siblings know, and when my parents came home, I let them know.”

Vidal moved to Houston in 2018 after attending Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi for a year. His parents moved to Texas five years earlier when his dad landed a job in Houston.

Choosing HCC was a natural move, he said. “The HCC cybersecurity program is really good and it has taught me a lot.”

HCC holds the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education designation for two-year colleges. The designation was jointly established by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security with support of the National Science Foundation and CyberWatch.

“Thanks to my training at HCC, I’m really happy about having this opportunity with Kinder Morgan,” Vidal said. “I think I will learn a lot there.”