Trainers
The instructors teaching SAINTCON 26 training classes on Monday, October 26.
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Andy Piazza
<klrgrz>
Just a killer grizz with a keyboard
Andy Piazza is a Senior Director of Threat Intelligence at Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, where he leads strategic research teams focused on nation state actors, cybercriminal activity, and malware analysis. Prior to Unit 42, Andy was the Global Head of Threat Intelligence at IBM X-Force where he led a team of 50 threat researchers.
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Dale Rowe
<Tetraide>
Sr. Security Director, Filevine
AI SOAR and Security Engineering with Elastic
Dale holds a Ph.D. in Biometrics and Machine Learning and current CISSP and GXPN certifications with over 30 years’ experience in IT and Security. From 2010 – 2019 as a Professor in the BYU IT & Cybersecurity program, he established a student cyber-defense team which has twice ranked in the top three national teams. In 2015, as the Director of the BYU Cybersecurity Research Laboratory, he introduced an annual Girls Cybersecurity Camp which has introduced the field to hundreds of young women. Before BYU, he ran his own company providing security architecture services to a variety of clients from military and aerospace, to finance and healthcare.
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McKay Hardy
Co-Founder - Hack Labs
Beat the Breach: Incident Response Bootcamp
McKay Hardy is a cybersecurity consultant with more than 13 years of hands-on experience across incident response, insider threat investigations, digital forensics, penetration testing, software development, and ICS/OT integrations. He has led and supported incident response efforts for organizations in highly regulated and operationally critical environments, bringing a practical, mission-focused approach to defending real-world systems. Driven by a passion for training that reflects the true pressures of cyber crises, McKay created Beat the Breach to bridge the gap between traditional instruction and the realities practitioners face during high-stakes incidents. His work focuses on delivering immersive, authenticity-first learning experiences that strengthen technical skill, decision-making, and cross-team coordination under fire.
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Michael Butler
President - Final Frontier Security
Satellite Hacking: Going Beyond the Planet
Michael Butler is the founder and president of Final Frontier Security. He has worked in the offensive security field for 13 years which includes time working for the US Army, NSA, Cyber command, and several commercial cyber security companies. He has taught at the NSA, Blackhat, Saintcon, and various BSides conferences. His specialty is hacking cloud environments (AWS, Azure, and GCP) and has developed and provided advanced training on these topics.
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Ross Woodside
<grumbl3>
Fraud Detection Cloud Security Engineer
AI SOAR and Security Engineering with Elastic
Ross has a BS in Information Technology from BYU where he graduated in 2015. He spent 5 years as a SOC analyst and engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (DoE), then another five as a security engineer at MX, just down the road in Lehi. At the start of this year he took on a role as a fraud detection cloud engineer at FileVine. He and his wife, Ashley, have seven children and live in Pocatello Idaho.
