Source: Joint Base San Antonio
Chief TJ White explains how Texas is defending the systems that power the state, and what every Texan can do to help.
On the latest episode of TXOGA Talks, host TXOGA President Todd Staples sat down with the first Chief of the Texas Cyber Command, TJ White, who is a retired Navy Vice Admiral who served 37 years in uniform and led the Navy’s cyber operations. The Texas Legislature created the San Antonio-based agency in 2025 to defend government systems and critical infrastructure.
Staples began with the stakes. “Almost any device in the modern energy business talks to something else…a pump talks to a control room. A control room talks to a scheduling system.” Connectivity drives the oil and natural gas industry’s efficiency, but it also makes the industry a target.
With Texas ranking fourth in the world for oil production if it were its own country, a breach could mean short supplies and higher prices for consumers.
Chief White, who called himself “an oil company brat” raised by a refinery and pipeline engineer, said the threat keeps escalating. “Our adversaries don’t take a day off. We don’t get to build the command first and then defend Texas second,” he said. Since he left the Navy, the threat “has only gotten bigger, badder, and bolder.” He added that artificial intelligence now lets attackers “run thousands of attacks anywhere, everywhere, all at one time.”
The Command’s approach is to get ahead of attacks instead of waiting for them. “Maneuver means that we don’t sit still and absorb punches,” White said. “Our highest value work is the incident that never happens.” He described the goal as victory, not just winning: “Victory is something that you achieve and is persistent.”
Chief White walked listeners through Project Watershed 250, a first-of-its-kind pilot launched with Governor Greg Abbott and the White House National Cyber Director. Major technology companies are volunteering tools and expertise at no cost to Texas water and wastewater utilities. “If it can work for water, I think it can work for power, for manufacturing, for agriculture,” Chief White said, “and potentially for the oil and gas sector.” He also previewed the new Critical Infrastructure Cyber Center of Excellence, which will start with energy and water. “There wouldn’t be an energy industry that we wanted if it wasn’t connected in cyberspace,” he noted.
White also shared the Command’s “Foundational Five” for families and businesses: slow down and verify to avoid phishing, install updates right away, back up what you can’t afford to lose, use passkeys, and pair a password manager with multifactor authentication. Scammers rely on urgency, he warned, calling it “their number one weapon.” A good backup, he said, “is going to be the difference between an inconvenience and a catastrophe.” Staples admitted the advice on updates had gone “from preaching to meddling.”
Chief White closed with a reminder that security takes ongoing effort. “You can’t buy your way to safety,” he said. “Cybersecurity isn’t something you own like a lock on a door. It’s a thing you practice.”
As Texas producers power the nation and its allies, the state is making sure the systems behind that energy are just as strong.
