It’s been a while since our last employee spotlight, a blog dedicated to celebrating the hardworking employees of DomainTools by sharing interesting, fun stories about the wonderful people who work here. We’re always grateful for the outstanding individuals we get to work with and decided it’s time to once again showcase the many talented artists, athletes, and aficionados that make up our DomainTools family. So, with the re-introduction of this quarterly blog series, I’m thrilled to formally introduce you to DomainTools Security Evangelist, Tim Helming. It should be no surprise if Tim’s name sounds familiar to you. Not only does he have over 20 years of experience in information security, but as our company evangelist extraordinaire, he authors many pieces of content, presents for webinars, and is part of the Breaking Badness podcast trio.
One of my favorite things about Tim is his love of telling stories. From his early life experience as a school teacher to his present-day role here at DomainTools, his passions for performing and creating a narrative have been a common thread throughout his career. So while Tim spends his days crafting infosec tales that benefit our community, I’m both happy and honored to be able to give a short glimpse into a chapter of what one day may be part of his bestselling biography.
According to Tim, his work in infosec has never been deeply technical. He entered the industry just at the peak of the dot-com boom with a tech support position at WatchGuard Technologies. As he worked his way up to leading the Product Management team there, Tim realized how much he enjoyed speaking opportunities and getting to articulate the company’s vision. In fact, he would even joke about his true role at the company being “Evangelist in Chief” (now that’s what I call foreshadowing). Tim ultimately navigated his way to DomainTools in 2013, and other than a brief yearlong venture into industrial security, he’s been here ever since. In his initial role as Director of Product Management, Tim was able to participate in a handful of significant DomainTools moments. He considers his involvement in the Iris product launch and his work with DomainTools Risk Score as a few of his favorite contributions in the “early years.”
Tim’s abilities to communicate and entertain don’t stop when the clock hits 5 p.m.—they’re interests that carry into his hobbies outside of work too. Before his career in the infosec industry, Tim both taught and played music professionally as a classical percussionist, although now he calls it his “self-funding hobby.” If you ever get the chance to ask Tim about his music career, I highly suggest doing so. He’s had some incredible opportunities worth hearing about, from doing a show with Ray Charles and playing with the Seattle Symphony to providing soundtracks and sound effects for movies, video games, and even a theme park. If you’re curious about what blockbuster hit you can hear him on, Tim says his “funny, proud moment” from that period of his life was playing on the soundtrack for the 2000 film, “Battlefield Earth.” The film may only score 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I personally think it’s worthy of DomainTools movie night featuring a commentary track by our very own Tim Helming.
If you can’t find Tim out evangelizin’, building his own drums, or playing music, chances are you’ll find him behind a microphone. From our conversation, I learned that Tim’s love for imparting information goes hand-in-hand with his other lifelong fascination: radio. He’s had his ham radio license for close to 30 years and uses it to volunteer for the City of Seattle’s emergency communications. If you want to experience Tim’s soothing radio voice for yourself aside from those crisis situations, check out the Breaking Badness podcast, where he joins fellow DomainTools employees, Kelsey LaBelle and Chad Anderson, to talk about all things infosec (and even crack a few jokes here and there). Shameless plug aside, it is clear that Tim brings his enthusiasm for teaching, connecting with people, and entertaining into everything he does in his life. All of us feel very lucky to have Tim on the DomainTools team! Make sure to Tim on Twitter (@timhelming) to keep an eye out for all the excellent content he’s involved in!
I’m looking forward to sharing more fun DomainTools stories as our series continues. If you are interested in joining our team, check out our job listings.
