On the Front Lines of the Skills Gap: The Mission of Ready Force Cyber
TECHNOLOGY
On the Front Lines of the Skills Gap: The Mission of Ready Force Cyber
By: Bro: Tommy de Jongh
The United States faces a shortage of roughly 500,000 cybersecurity professionals, and the gap is widening. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is reshaping every industry faster than most educational institutions can keep pace with. For Tommy de Jongh, a member of Delta Lambda’s Fall 2023 line, that gap is not an abstract policy problem. It is the thing he shows up to close, one student at a time, as the Director of Workforce Development for Ready Force Cyber.
Ready Force Cyber is a small African-American and Veteran led nonprofit built on a straightforward conviction: that access to quality AI and cybersecurity education should not depend on geography, income, or institutional prestige. The organization operates across multiple program areas, reaching K-12 students, college undergraduates, career changers, and working professionals. It trains educators through a Train-the-Trainer model, equipping teachers with the curriculum and certifications to lead AI and cybersecurity classrooms themselves, multiplying impact well beyond any single instructor. To date, the organization has trained more than 500 educators and reached over 1,200 students, with 92 percent of trained educators applying new skills within three weeks.
Brother de Jongh is currently spearheading the launch of Ready Force Cyber’s UpSkill Academy, an online training platform designed to prepare students to pass industry-recognized IT certification exams. The academy has secured partnerships with CompTIA and ISACA, two of the most respected certification vendors in the field. CompTIA certifications, including Security+ and CySA+, serve as baseline credentials for cybersecurity professionals across the public and private sectors. ISACA’s credentials, including CISA and CRISC, are among the most sought-after designations in risk management and information security. By anchoring the UpSkill Academy to these industry standards, Brother de Jongh is ensuring that graduates leave with credentials that employers already recognize and respect.
Most recently, Brother de Jongh brought that work directly to Howard University, where he served as a guest speaker, teaching students how to build applications and websites using AI tools. The session reflected a broader philosophy that runs through everything he does: that AI literacy is not a luxury for the technically inclined but a foundational skill for the next generation of professionals, regardless of their field of study. At one of the nation’s most historic HBCU’s, that message landed in exactly the right room.
Brother de Jongh does not arrive at this work theoretically. By day, he is an IT consultant at KPMG, working in cyber transformation, helping federal organizations modernize their security infrastructure to meet dynamic threats. He also currently serves part-time as a cyber officer in the Air Force Reserves, and previously commanded an intelligence Company in the Army National Guard. His technical education includes Master’s of Professional Studies in cyber intelligence from Georgetown University. That combination of corporate consulting, active military service, and academic depth gives him a rare vantage point, one that allows him to design programs grounded in what the field actually demands rather than what textbooks suggest it requires.
Across all of it, mentorship has been the constant. Brother de Jongh has worked with students at every level, from middle schoolers encountering cybersecurity concepts for the first time to older adults pivoting careers later in life. He draws from each layer of his experience to meet students where they are, and he has built programs that reflect the full range of what AI and cybersecurity education can look like when it is done with intention. Delta Lambda is proud to stand behind a Brother who is not waiting for the skills gap to close itself.
Author Bio: Bro. Tommy de Jongh is currently the Associate Editor for the Delta Lambda Chapter. He works full-time as an IT consultant and part-time as an Air Force Officer for the Department of Defense. His initiation chapter is Delta Lambda as well, and he crossed in October 2023.
Dentist, Officer, Leader: The Relentless Service of Brother Dr. Wesley D. Thomas
ALPHAS ON THE MOVE
Dentist, Officer, Leader: The Relentless Service of Brother Dr. Wesley D. Thomas
By: Bro: Tommy de Jongh
Brother Wesley D. Thomas, holds a lot of titles. General dentist, Lieutenant Colonel in the District of Columbia Army National Guard, Treasurer of the American Board of Dental Examiners, and most recently Morehouse College’s inaugural 50 Under 50 honoree. What connects all of it is not ambition, but a consistent orientation toward service that has defined every room he has entered. Since the fall of 2006, Bro. Wesley Thomas has been a Brother of Alpha Phi Alpha, initiated into the Kappa Xi Lambda Chapter, and is currently an active member of the Delta Lambda Chapter.
His recent election as Treasurer of the American Board of Dental Examiners represents a natural progression for a man who has spent years working to make dental licensure fairer, more rigorous, and more consistent across the country. ADEX develops and maintains the clinical examinations used to license dentists and dental hygienists across the United States, and Brother Thomas arrived at the treasurer’s seat having already served as both Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson of the District of Columbia Board of Dentistry, and as a Board Commissioner for the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations. He has not simply observed these systems. He has shaped them.
His record in uniform is equally striking. As State Dental Officer for the D.C. Army National Guard, currently serving at the Pentagon under the Defense Health Agency, Brother Thomas led his unit’s dental readiness program to a 97% readiness rate, ranking first in the nation. That figure is not a statistic in isolation. It represents hundreds of service members fit and ready to deploy, a direct result of sustained, disciplined leadership. The Army Commendation Medal and the Major General Calvin G. Franklin Leadership Award are among the honors his service has earned.
Brother Thomas is a Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude graduate of Morehouse College, a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who left the South with honors and kept building. He earned his Doctor of Dental Medicine from the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine and completed his residency at Bronx Lebanon Hospital in New York City, where he served as Chief Resident. The foundation was rigorous, and it shows.
This year, Morehouse College named him to its inaugural 50 Under 50, a selective recognition honoring alumni whose leadership, service, and professional excellence reflect the College’s mission. Candidates were evaluated across four pillars: professional achievement, community and civic impact, commitment to Morehouse, and personal story. Brother Thomas was measured against each one and found deserving. His selection affirms what Delta Lambda has long known.
Beyond the clinic and the armory, Brother Thomas serves on the Board of Trustees for Levine Music and actively supports the Washington National Opera, Washington Performing Arts, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He is a Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha, and does a fantastic job demonstrating the aims of our Fraternity: Manly Deeds, Scholarship, and Love for All Mankind. Delta Lambda is proud to call him Brother and is glad to have a stellar leader in the chapter.
Author Bio: Bro. Tommy de Jongh is currently the Associate Editor for the Delta Lambda Chapter. He works full-time as an IT consultant and part-time as an Air Force Officer for the Department of Defense. His initiation chapter is Delta Lambda as well, and he crossed in October 2023.
A Delta Lambda Brother Takes His Seat at One of the Nation’s Top Business Schools
EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
A Delta Lambda Brother Takes His Seat at One of the Nation’s Top Business Schools
By: Bro: Tommy de Jongh
Getting into the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business is hard. Getting in on a full scholarship, with two of the most competitive fellowship designations in graduate business education, is something else entirely. Henry Kenney III, a member of Delta Lambda’s Fall 2023 line, did exactly that, and he has spent the past year making clear he intends to earn every bit of it.
Darden is consistently ranked the top public business school in the country, known nationally for its rigorous case method curriculum and its culture of collaborative learning. Students do not simply read about business decisions; they are placed inside them, dissecting thousands of real-world cases across two years of intensive study. The program demands a particular kind of intellectual stamina, one that asks students to be prepared, curious, and willing to defend their thinking in a room full of equally prepared peers. Brother Kenney has thrived in that environment.
His path to Charlottesville was shaped by two prestigious honors. As a Consortium Fellow, Brother Kenney is part of a decades-old network dedicated to advancing diversity and inclusion in business education, connecting graduate students across the country’s top MBA programs with each other and with companies committed to building more equitable organizations. His selection as an MLT Fellow, through Management Leadership for Tomorrow, placed him among a cohort of high-achieving professionals of color being intentionally developed for senior leadership. Together, the two fellowships covered his tuition in full and signaled, before he had sat in a single class, that the field had already taken notice.
Brother Kenney is concentrating in marketing and management consulting, with his sights set on brand strategy at the Fortune 500 level. It is a space that rewards both analytical precision and cultural fluency, the ability to understand not just what consumers buy, but why they trust one name over another and what it takes to build something lasting. Those are questions that have animated the best brand builders of the past century, and they are the questions Brother Kenney is training himself to answer.
This upcoming summer offers an early look at what that future holds for Bro. Kenney. He was recently offered a position at Church and Dwight Co. as a Brand Management Intern, working inside one of the most quietly powerful consumer goods portfolios in the country. Church and Dwight is the parent company behind Arm and Hammer, OxiClean, Therabreath, and a roster of other household names that move billions of dollars in product each year with relatively little fanfare. Learning brand management inside that kind of operation, where the work is unglamorous and the stakes are real, is the kind of education no classroom fully replicates.
On campus, he has made himself useful at every turn. He serves on the Student Admissions Committee, helping evaluate the next class of Darden students with the same rigor that was applied to his own application. He chairs the outreach committee for his section, contributes to the Black Business Student Association, and sings with the UVA Chamber Singers, a reminder that professional development and cultural life are not competing demands but complementary ones.
As he enters his second and final year, Brother Kenney will add mentorship to his already full plate, guiding incoming first-year students through the same transition he navigated a year ago. He will also participate in university recruitment, helping identify the next generation of students who belong at Darden. It is the kind of investment that tends to travel forward in time, passing from one person to the next until the chain of it becomes impossible to trace back to any single source. Delta Lambda is proud to know where this particular chain begins.
Author Bio: Bro. Tommy de Jongh is currently the Associate Editor for the Delta Lambda Chapter. He works full-time as an IT consultant and part-time as an Air Force Officer for the Department of Defense. His initiation chapter is Delta Lambda as well, and he crossed in October 2023.