Richard Garza

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT RICHARD GARZA

After a rewarding career as a professional swim coach, I am now a J.D. candidate at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. I am also an M.S. student in Cybersecurity and Risk Management through the Luddy School of Informatics, the Kelley School of Business, and the Maurer School of Law.My reason for pursuing a legal career is the same reason I pursued coaching: create a better experience for others. My interests in the law include A.I, data privacy, cybersecurity, and of course, swimming.I was fortunate enough to be placed in various leadership positions throughout my career in swimming, and I had the privilege of working with approximately eight thousand athletes during that time. The skills and tools I developed while working with so many different people, clubs, and communities are precious to me, and are not the kind of skills you learn from a book.My goal was to create the absolute best possible experience for the athletes, coaches, and volunteers under my charge. When I felt I had accomplished my mission, my focus shifted to something bigger. The culture and environment of the places where we spend most of our time: at work, at home, and online. There\'s not much I co do in that space as a swim coach, but there\'s a lot I can do as an attorney. For any organization to develop and grow, data is necessary. The more data the better, but at what cost? It may not bother some to know that their grocery list is saved and analyzed for marketing. It might not bother some to call their doctor for a referral instead of having their medical data transferred automatically. But imagine if your health or life insurance premiums went up because your doctor learned what you were buying at the grocery store.On the one hand, organizations need to be guided with what they can and cannot do with customer or employee data. On the other hand, individuals have a right to know how their data is going to be used by their employers and providers. An organization has an incentive to know everything, a person has an incentive to protect everything. The tension that exists between these conflicting incentives is where trust comes in. My goal is to aide that trust among us and between us by guiding and protecting both people and organizations from each other, themselves, and others online.