When Heath Barker thinks about NRECA’s Project Guardian cybersecurity program, he’s reminded of his young grandson after he’s dumped a chest of Legos on the floor.

“When we’ve got to put them back, he’s just looking at me like, ‘Where do I start?’” said Barker, chief information officer at Mohave Electric Cooperative. “We start throwing one at time in the bucket, and now it’s handfuls at a time, and then the job is done. The Legos are like cybersecurity on the ground in front of a co-op that has no experience.”

Project Guardian offers a helping hand with “cyber champions” to assist co-ops with tabletop exercises, self-assessments and more, added Barker, who joined the program’s working group at its first in-person meeting at NRECA. “We're all pretty engaged and pretty excited about it.”

The working group is made up of 20 co-op staff ranging from IT to finance to member services at distribution co-ops and generation and transmission co-ops of all sizes nationwide. NRECA launched the federally funded $4 million project in May with the overarching goal of leaving no co-op behind when it comes to cybersecurity.

At the Sept. 10-11 kickoff, working group members discussed the categorization of co-ops to ensure that Project Guardian resources are aligned with their cybersecurity size and maturity. The group will continue to meet as the project develops to ensure that the program’s priorities and goals are relevant and effective for all co-ops.

“One of the biggest achievements that came out of the working group was the collaboration and the variety of perspectives, thoughts and ideas brought to the table from all the participating member co-ops categories,” said NRECA Cybersecurity Principal Justin Luebbert.

“The working group co-ops—big, medium and small—were able to contribute and work collaboratively to whiteboard ideas on how the resources developed from Project Guardian can be tailored to meet the needs of all co-ops.”

Traci Brock, Wasco Electric Cooperative’s member service manager who has no cyber background, traveled across country to participate, giving the group a small-co-op perspective and gathering ideas and strategies that can benefit her 4,800-meter co-op based in The Dalles, Oregon.

“The risk for a small utility is the same for a big utility,” said Brock, one of Wasco Electric’s 24 employees. “It felt pretty good to know the little guys were making a difference when we would say something or propose an idea.”

Trina Zagar-Brown, Holy Cross Energy’s vice president of business services, which oversees IT and cyber and physical security, said it was “rewarding to see everyone lean in and participate with the sole objective of how we can strengthen cybersecurity across all co-ops.”

She said it was particularly meaningful to find every region of the country represented in the working group to facilitate cybersecurity ideas and problem-solving strategies for co-ops everywhere.

“Even in a two-day meeting, I came back with thoughts on how to grow, enhance things or stay on a certain path at Holy Cross,” a 60,000-meter co-op in Glenwood Spring, Colorado, she said.

Barker, whose Bullhead City, Arizona-based co-op has about 44,000 meters, said the working group taught him to appreciate how smaller co-ops grapple with cybersecurity.

“The diversity of the participating co-ops from California to Florida is going to help broaden the approachability of the products coming out of Project Guardian,” he said, recalling members’ “rapid fire” engagement on different topics. “Maybe the hardest thing is going to be capturing all of the ideas.”

NRECA will run the program through April 30, 2029, with funds and an agreement with the Department of Energy’s Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance Program and Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER).