When the company was founded in 2005, the Lunarline team consisted of the company’s two owners and Onuskanich. She’s a 1996 graduate of Springboro High School and suggested that the company look in the Dayton area as a place where operations could expand.
In effect, it meant that she could go home.
“Dayton initially wasn’t on our list at all,” she said, noting company officials had their choices down to Colorado Springs, Col., San Diego, Cal, and Tampa, Fl.
“And then we were told to go out and find a second location for our security operations center.”
Onuskanich said she’ll be working, in part, to keep other local graduates in the area by offering high-tech jobs that graduates sometimes find themselves moving elsewhere to secure. Lunarline will partner with area colleges and universities to develop internship programs leading to employment.
The Miami Valley Research Park, which houses Lunarline, brands itself online as “a university-related research park affiliated with four local academic institutions including Central State University, Sinclair Community College, The University of Dayton, and Wright State University.”
In April, Lunarline began its operations in the Miami Valley with only eight employees. The company has committed to hiring 17 more people within three years, but realistically speaking that number could be closer to 40.
One of Lunarline’s employees, Marie Hucke, grew up in Centerville and came back to the area to work for Lunarline after spending a couple years in Utah.
“Just being close to my family made it so worth it to move back,” Hucke said.
Lunarline was showered with incentives as part of their deal to expand into Dayton. That included a $50,000 ED/GE grant from Montgomery County to assist in security construction costs.
Lunarline has three main branches. Security operations centers, like the one in Research Park, review clients networks and scan for intrusions, hackers or other kinds of malicious activity. The other two prongs include a cybersecurity consulting division and a school of cybersecurity. Although Lunarline handles commercial consulting, it also holds a number of government contracts. It provides cybersecurity for the federal departments of defense, education, commerce and transportation.
Lunarline will run a non-for-profit called the Cyber Warrior program out of Research Park. The program gives military veterans six months of cybersecurity training, which doesn’t cost them or require them to use their GI Bill. They’ll also help veterans find internships and locate jobs.
On Nov. 6, Lunarline will host its first annual cybersecurity symposium at Research Park.
“I left and now I’m back,” Onuskanich said. “A lot of people feel like they have to leave to find jobs. For us to be able to hire locally, we’re very excited about it.”
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