His deputy, Mario Garcia, will serve as acting commander of Cal-CSIC.
Before Tresh's appointment by Gov. Jerry Brown to his Cal-CSIC role in October 2016, Tresh had served as chief information officer for California High-Speed Rail, chief information security officer for the California Executive Office in Orange County, chief information security officer for the Office of Information Security in the California Technology Agency, and chief information officer for the California National Guard.
Before his role in government IT leadership, Tresh served in Operation Iraqi Freedom as the brigade communications officer from 2005 to 2006 before retiring as a senior Army officer. He earned his Master of Science degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, and a Master of Science degree in computer information systems from the University of Phoenix.
Testifying in March before state lawmakers, Tresh noted that in the area of cybersecurity, “The efforts of the CAL-CSIC are truly making a difference. California continues to mature in the area of cybersecurity, and we are taking a more proactive approach to cybersecurity than we ever have before. We have come a long way, but we still have work to do.”
He was the speaker at a Techwire Industry Briefing in May.
Garcia, who has been deputy commander of Cal-CSIC since June 2017, noted in a Techwire interview a year ago that Cal-CSIC raised the alarm on Kaspersky software well before the federal government did so.
Techwire wrote at the time: "OES Director Mark Ghilarducci then involved Department of Technology Director Amy Tong and Government Operations Secretary Marybel Batjer. The three leaders deemed Kaspersky software a threat and directed agencies to remove the software and to end all procurements that include it."
Garcia, the acting commander, also has a strong background in military and IT service, having served as chief of the California National Guard's Information Services Support Division and later as network manager. Most recently, before joining Cal-CSIC, he had been division chief for the Data Management and Systems Integration Division, which is responsible for federal IT systems supporting the California Army National Guard.
