In 2000, Sean left a successful career as the General Manager of a newspaper, packed up his car and started a road trip that would change his life. His journey took him away from his hometown to New Horizons, a CIW Authorized Training Partner, in Boise, Idaho. There he took CIW and other IT certification classes to help him jumpstart his Web professional career.

In just over three months, Sean had earned his Master CIW Designer certification and soon thereafter was hired as the Webmaster for a four-year college. Sean applied his CIW and IT training at this position to tasks that included web design and development, programming, server and database administration and security.

"This opportunity would not have been possible without the Master CIW Designer certification because at the time I had no degree to fall back on," recalled Sean. "I was hired based solely on my training, certifications and experience."

One of Sean's most important assignments as Webmaster included administering student records over the Web and developing front end applications for students to process their records, grades and transcripts. Realizing that it was imperative to keep this information secure, Sean pursued and earned the CIW Security Analyst certification to compliment his Master CIW Designer certification.

This additional certification, in turn, lead to another career advancement opportunity. Sean resigned his role as Webmaster and accepted a position as Information Security Analyst for one of the world's leading providers of advanced semiconductor solutions.

"I had been working on security issues for several years but I needed to learn how the industry handled threats and vulnerabilities so I turned to CIW once again for my certification needs," explained Sean. "Now I work in an environment alongside developers and server administrators to help them protect our enterprise environment."

Sean will continue his Web professional education by pursuing the Master CIW Administrator and Master CIW Enterprise Developer certifications. He also looks to add vendor-specific certifications and a PhD with a concentration in Information Security with aspirations of becoming Chief Security Officer or Chief Information Officer in the future.

"I am living proof that an industry-recognized certification like the Master CIW Designer combined with experience can become the cornerstone of a long and distinguished professional career," said Sean.