New Appointment Announcement - Vice President of Training

We are delighted to announce that John Valkovci will be joining the Asset Reality team as our Vice President of Training. John’s extensive experience in developing detailed training programs will help us to expand our educational offerings.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, John made his way to law school at the University of Richmond where he achieved a Juris Doctorate in Law.

After three years in Richmond, he accepted a commission to serve in the United States Navy JAG Corps before returning to finish his degree and pass the bar exam. During his military service, he spent several years travelling the globe as a naval officer assigned to the USS Grasp and later at the Naval Legal Service Office at the Norfolk Naval Station

Once his time in the Navy came to a close, John returned to his roots and spent the next 28 years as an assistant United States Attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania, covering the cities of Pittsburgh and Johnstown. Whilst in this role, he acted as the Chief of the Johnstown Division where he helped to prosecute countless cyber-related cases involving fraud, narcotics and child exploitation.

John retired from law enforcement in 2018 to pursue a budding interest in cybersecurity. He started attending lectures at the Department of Justice, collecting many qualifications and becoming certified in Ethical Hacking, Mobile Forensics, AccessData, Hacking Forensics and Blockchain Investigations.

Due to his many impressive credentials, John was offered several teaching positions at prestigious universities and industry teaching bodies before deciding to join Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania as an associate professor of Cybersecurity. As the University’s Cyber Defence and Forensics Coordinator, he was responsible for the development of their information security programs and spent his time ensuring their curriculum was the most diverse on offer.

In just three short years, John and his team created more than 14 specialised cybersecurity courses covering everything from digital forensics, dark web analysis and open-source intelligence gathering to complex online investigations, blockchain examination and cryptocurrency analysis.

His work with the University was even recognised as an authority on the subject by both the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security and was approved as a Designated Program of Study in Digital Forensics.

Since leaving Saint Francis, John has worked as the Director of Training for the Center for International Cyber Intelligence (CI2) whilst also serving on their board of directors. He also lent his services as a guest-lecturer to the Dickinson Law School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and conducted several multi-day training sessions teaching blockchain and cryptocurrency analysis techniques to agents and analysts from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

John couldn’t be happier to be joining us at such a pivotal moment for the crypto industry:

"I'm very excited to be part of Asset Reality and to be working with an amazing team of some of the top digital asset professionals in the world. My short-term focus will be on investigations and the launch of our upcoming training platform for law enforcement. Looking further into the future, we are developing a series of much-needed training platforms for digital asset recovery and management."

Our co-founder & CEO Aidan Larkin is excited to finally be providing some of the educational resources that are sorely needed in the crypto sector:

“I’m thrilled that John has decided to bring his talents to us here at Asset Reality. We’re striving to be a key part of the infrastructure that makes crypto safer for its users and his vast expertise in teaching cyber security at the highest levels will go a long way towards helping us achieve this goal.”

If you would like to know more about our work in crypto-related frauds and asset recovery, contact connect@assetreality.com

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