1995 FISSEA Educator of the Year
Nomination Letter for Gale Warshawsky

February 12, 1996

I nominate Gale Warshawsky of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) for the FISSEA Educator of the Year.

Gale Warshawsky is well known for her creation of the "Chip and Friends" puppets which she demonstrated three years ago at the FISSEA conference. Gale had created four short video clips that she used as part of her computer security training and awareness program at LLNL.

Gale's presentation three years ago had a significant impact on me because she explained that computer security ethics must be taught to children. A generation of our children have grown up playing games on computers at school and at home and now as adults, they expect to be able to play games in the workplace. As a security educator, Gale has been a trail-blazer in teaching computer ethics to children.

With the help of The Atterbury Foundation, Gale remade the original video clips to make them more appropriate for young school children and created a teacher's guide. To accomplish her goal, Gale spent hundreds of hours and over $6,000 of her own money to get "Chip and Friends" publicity available to schools and parents.

Gale is an active member of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), and is the director and programs manager for the International Community Interconnected Computing Exchange (ICICX). She has been the keynote speaker at both organization's annual conferences.

I believe that Gale Warshawsky has done more to promote computer security and computer ethics than any other person I know. Her love for computer security is only matched by her love for people. Thank you for considering Gale as the FISSEA Educator of the Year.

Congratulations Gale Warshawsky!