CatCHAT is a series of lectures hosted by the School of Business and Technology at Wayne State College.  

According to the WSC website, the purpose of this series is to educate business and technology students on potential job opportunities within Nebraska and can also be used as a networking opportunity. The series of presentations is also meant to encourage students to start their own businesses within the state to help the community thrive.  

Due to the CatCHAT series starting just recently in April 2025, there has only been one other presentation. The previous presentation was hosted by Scott Mueller, who discussed his local business out of Columbus.  

On Wednesday, Sept. 24, Lourdes Herling, a former WSC educator, talked about her career path and success up to this point.  

After working at WSC, Herling received a job at the Nebraska Public Power District where she worked multiple positions including the cyber security manager. She has since moved up within NPPD and works with a team focusing on cyber security governance, risk and assurance.  

“As a utility, we have compliance things that we have to abide by from a regulatory perspective,” Herling said. “We establish the things that we need to do from a cybersecurity perspective and follow cyber security best practices. From a risk perspective, we evaluate what risk is being brought in with new technology.” 

Herling shared a story about traveling to a Nebraska high school for their career day events and asking students what career would not need cybersecurity. One student suggested to Herling that a job such as Dairy Queen does not require cyber security protection.  

“Maybe their ice cream machines aren’t high tech, but I’m pretty sure the way they take out money is high tech,” Herling said.  

Herling said to students that cybersecurity is important because everything in the modern age involves some piece of technology. 

“From a power perspective, we’re just looking at the potential threats,” Herling said. “If you look at our firewall logs, the amount of attempts to hit our firewall that are blocked on a daily basis is in the millions. That’s on the corporate firewall.” 

During her presentation, Herling shared that when she did a search on LinkedIn, she found approximately 500 results for technology jobs within Nebraska, showing that it is possible to get this kind of job and stay in one’s desired region.