In 2024, the so-called ‘safe’ environment that schools are supposed to provide brought about a different feeling: fear. And yet, even with physical danger posing a huge threat to safety, the concept of school security has also spread into the digital world.
With the onset of the digital landscape taking over a vast majority of institutions, a lucrative side of this industry involves cybersecurity management and protection, especially in schools. With the amount of resources prevalent to hackers in the modern age, cybersecurity breaches are increasing as technology becomes more universal.
To combat this issue on our campus, the jointly-operated team of cybersecurity professionals from both the St. Mark’s IT department and Axxys technologies, a private cybersecurity management company, have developed an effective protection service.
“It is a partnership,” said Chief Technology Officer Thomas Eckel. ”So we have our needs and what we want to protect, and then they have their set of expertise at the table. So we work with Axxys to come up with a plan that’s best suited for St. Mark’s.”
Considering the common utilization of many St. Mark’s domains, both sides of the partnership have to be trusted – luckily, the founder and CEO of Axxys technologies, Jack Safrit, has been associated with St. Mark’s for over 40 years.
“I started St. Mark’s in the eighth grade and graduated,” said Safrit. “I think it’s a special experience. And it’s one that almost never leaves you for the most part. You’re still part of St. Mark’s for a long, long time. After I graduated, coming back as a teacher was strange considering that some of the existing faculty were my teachers.”
After both attending and teaching at school, Safrit decided to enter a new stage in his life and ultimately founded his first company.
“For a while, I didn’t know what I was going to do,” said Safrit, ”but I decided to start by selling printer computer printer supplies and then it evolved into selling software and then selling parts and then to building systems and it finally moved into managing security. So over the period of time, it’s just been an evolution.”
While Safrit hopes to continue the company and provide as much assistance as possible, he also plans for the future after his tenure is complete.
“One of the things we’ve been building for the last few years is the theme that if I weren’t here, someone else is ready to run with the same philosophy,” said Safrit. “So our plan is to stay independent and continue to grow as we have been for quite a few years now, opposed to consolidating with other companies. When you sell out, maybe good, maybe bad, but a lot of times, it’s not necessarily great. And that’s just not something I want to put our team and our clients through.”
