Nicholas Vidal

Principal AI Engineer

• Designed and implemented AI workflows and Model Context Protocol (MCP) services with FastAPI and FastMCP, giving AI agents controlled access to internal systems through role-based authorization, scoped tokens, and audit logging.
• Set up authentication and secrets management: Keycloak federated with Microsoft Entra ID for single sign-on, and HashiCorp Vault for credentials.
• Built and maintained the infrastructure the services ran on, including RKE2 Kubernetes, PostgreSQL databases, and monitoring.
• Integrated the Probo compliance platform with the customer-facing Trust Center, so published security information came from the system of record instead of manual updates.
• Automated audit evidence collection with Python scripts that pulled data from source systems through their APIs, replacing manual collection before each review.
• Led SOC 2 Type II readiness and the audit across 33 controls to a clean report, and designed the AI governance program that received a Satisfactory rating in an independent NIST AI RMF 1.0 assessment (July 2026).

Senior Manager, Cyber Operations (Wing A6)

Cannon AFB, NM · Nov 2023 – Jun 2026

Served on the senior staff of a 172-person cyber and IT organization, coordinating technical initiatives across teams and partner organizations.

• Selected as vice chair of the cyber career field's quality assurance and standardization/evaluation working group; contributed to the career field's training plan (CFETP) framework.
• Helped establish the new staff office's structure and wrote its operating instruction for coordinating work across directorates.
• Coordinated an operations center modernization stalled for three years: led 10 people through a 120-hour install, replaced 4 projectors with 26 displays, and cut emergency setup time from 30 minutes to 5.
• Filled an interim communications director role for 24 weeks, coordinating nine organizations to get secure communications kits to 425 deploying personnel.
• Delivered 64 devices for a new task force headquarters 30 days ahead of schedule.

Cyber Communications Senior Enlisted Advisor (Senior IT Advisor)

Cannon AFB, NM · Dec 2021 – Sep 2023

• Fixed a two-year-old audio problem on the operations center's video system by bringing together 15 specialists from three agencies and two bases.
• Led a 14-person team that completed an operations center IT setup in 5 days against a typical 2-week timeline.
• Managed a VoIP integration and trained two administrators to run it; developed the unit's standard computer build process.

IT Operations Manager, Client Systems

Ramstein AB, Germany · Dec 2018 – Nov 2021

Led a team of 10 to 12 supporting the systems cyber operators used to run and defend a network serving 46,000 users across 9 bases.

• Built an IT request tracking database that showed what came in, who owned it, and where it stood, cutting wait time by 832 hours a year.
• Built an asset tracking database with a map view that located 246 devices.
• Helped pilot and test the VPN solution that raised remote-work capacity 2,500% in under 30 days at the start of COVID-19, supporting 439,000 concurrent sessions.
• Ran a hardware lifecycle project from plan to rollout: trained 9 people, deployed 179 systems, and eliminated 53,000 vulnerabilities.
• Set up a hands-on training room, writing 5 procedures and configuring 15 laptops. As the organization's Master Resiliency Trainer, led 16 group workshops for 214 people.

Program Manager, Squadron Programs

Ramstein AB, Germany · May 2017 – Nov 2018

• Rebuilt the performance evaluation process with quality checklists and routing timelines, cutting late evaluations from 23 to 0 in three months, then kept 112 on time and caught 237 errors before submission.
• Built a digital document routing system that cut processing time 80%, and a supervisor-change tracker that saved 703 hours a year.
• Built a SharePoint tool that gave leadership one place for daily tasks, keeping 480 documents accurate.

Earlier roles

Osan AB, Scott AFB, McConnell AFB · 2006 – 2017

Executive IT Support Manager; Systems Manager, Command and Control Platforms; IT Operations Supervisor; Knowledge Operations and SharePoint Administrator

• Rebuilt a section training program around a master task list for two specialties, clarifying 164 tasks and cutting 12 hours from training time.
• Built a vulnerability tracking tool that gave leadership visibility for the first time, then cut the vulnerability index from 3.7 to 1.1 across 500+ systems.
• Ran the patch testing group that validated 15 updates before release with zero user downtime.
• Brought 4 mobile device systems onto the enterprise network and wrote the operating procedure for them.
• Trained 191 site and process owners through a SharePoint migration, and cut new-user account setup from 10 days to 2.