SouthWest Ohio Computer Association

Congratulations to the SWOCA SEAL V cohort on completing Year I of our Leadership Program! 🎉. You survived the challenges, led with purpose, and proved that great leaders are built one step at a time. Here's to growth, teamwork, and accomplishments of an amazing first year - Year II, here you come! 🎉

Happy Administrative Professionals Day! 🎉

Today we’re celebrating two incredible individuals who truly keep SWOCA running smoothly—Kiersten Isaacs and Kate Stouder.

Kiersten and Kate are the backbone of our day-to-day operations. Their organization, attention to detail, and unwavering dedication make a difference in everything we do. Whether it’s keeping things on track behind the scenes, supporting our team, or going the extra mile without hesitation, they do it all with professionalism and a positive attitude.

We are so grateful for the hard work, reliability, and heart they bring to SWOCA each and every day. Thank you both for everything you do—you are appreciated more than words can say! 💙

⚾️The SWOCA Team at OECN⚾️

We have the majority of our SWOCA Staff in attendance at the 2026 OECN Conference this year and we couldn’t more excited.

There are also several staff members presenting this year and we want to give those staff members a shout out and wish them luck!!

Thursday Presenters:

•Jacob & Matt

•Sue & Kimberly Tobak

•Olivia & Karla

•Amy Hudson Estepp

Friday Presenters:

•Marc Hopkins is presenting twice

•Jim Spence

•Olivia & Jennifer

SWOCA is well represented and we look forward to listening and engaging with our fellow ITC members.

👀✨ Can you guess who’s behind the caricature?

We had some fun turning our team into cartoons! Drop your guesses in the comments — we’ll reveal the answers tomorrow! 👇

It’s…Karla Dunlap!!

👀✨ Can you guess who’s behind the caricature?

We had some fun turning our team into cartoons! Drop your guesses in the comments — we’ll reveal the answers tomorrow! 👇

It’s…Marc Hopkins!!

👀✨ Can you guess who’s behind the caricature?

We had some fun turning our team into cartoons! Drop your guesses in the comments — we’ll reveal the answers tomorrow! 👇

It’s…Suzette Ritchey!! ✌🏼☮️🤍

👀✨ Can you guess who’s behind the caricature?

We had some fun turning our team into cartoons! Drop your guesses in the comments — we’ll reveal the answers tomorrow! 👇

It’s…Melissa Selke!!

Suzette Ritchey, Matt Ross, and Jacob Smith, attended the Fortinet Accelerate 26 Conference from March 8th-12th. The first two days were packed with 16 hours of preconference workshops designed as certification training courses.

The following days were full of sessions demonstrating everything from best practices with existing Fortinet products to sneak previews of upcoming feature updates and entirely new products. Between those sessions the expo floor had booths with representatives from the teams that develop and support many of the individual products Fortinet offers where you could discuss anything from theoretical use cases for a product you may not have, to feature requests for products we use every day.

During the three days of general conference there were also onsite certification exams available (one per attendee included with admission), these are proctored online exams you typically would have to go to a Pearson Vue testing center for. We also received an additional test voucher for use after the conference.

Matt Ross attended the preconference workshop for Security Operations Architect (NSE 7), then on Wednesday he took and passed the NSE 7 Sec Ops Architect exam, which means he is now halfway to being a Fortinet Certified Solution Specialist - Security Operations.

During the conference they also attended sessions highlighting upcoming innovations for products we utilize such as FortiClient, FortiEDR, FortiMail Workspace, FortiSIEM, FortiSOAR, and FortiAI; and also extended conversations with the developers and product managers supporting FortiDeceptor and FortiSOCaaS on the expo floor, as well as distributors and partners that we hope to be able to work with to provide Fortinet offerings to our customers at the best prices we can get.

👀✨ Can you guess who’s behind the caricature?

We had some fun turning our team into cartoons! Drop your guesses in the comments — we’ll reveal the answers tomorrow! 👇

It’s….Wes Caudill!!! 👾💻📀

👀✨ Can you guess who’s behind the caricature?

We had some fun turning our team into cartoons! Drop your guesses in the comments — we’ll reveal the answers tomorrow! 👇

It’s…John Reeder!!! 💻👾📀