Security infrastructure that holds up under audit.
Third Level IT is a boutique security and compliance infrastructure firm in Metro Detroit. I work with credit unions closing NCUA findings, defense contractors facing CMMC Level 2, and municipalities securing water systems.
- 15+ years enterprise network engineering
- Fortinet Partner
- SAM.gov registered · CAGE coded
- Colocation facility · Southfield, MI
Compliance is an engineering problem. Treat it like one.
Most firms hand you a findings report and leave. I take the findings, fix the infrastructure behind them, and produce the evidence your examiner asks for. Consulting and engineering, from the same person.
Security & Compliance
Audit remediation, framework implementation, and security assessments where every finding is backed by actual device output. NIST 800-171, GLBA, CMMC 2.0, NIST CSF.
→ 02Fractional CTO & Advisory
Ongoing technology leadership for organizations that need an executive-level answer for the board, the examiner, or the prime contractor — without a full-time hire.
→ 03Managed Infrastructure
Monitoring, patching, and incident response for the environments I build. Wazuh SIEM, FortiGate firewalls, verified backups. Infrastructure operations, not a help desk queue.
→ 04Private Cloud Hosting
Dedicated, single-tenant infrastructure in a Tier III colocation facility in Southfield, Michigan. Built for CMMC enclaves and regulated workloads that can't live in shared cloud.
→Three regulated verticals. Deep, not wide.
The practice is built around organizations of 20–500 people whose regulators, primes, or auditors have made infrastructure a board-level problem.
Financial Institutions
Credit unions and community financial institutions working through examination findings. I remediate the network, access control, and monitoring gaps the examiner documented — and hand you the evidence file for the follow-up.
Defense Contractors
Manufacturers and suppliers in the defense industrial base that need to implement the 110 controls of NIST 800-171 — not read about them. Enclave design, implementation, and hosting under one roof.
Municipal & Utility Environments
Water and wastewater utilities and municipal operations where IT meets OT. Network segmentation, secure remote access, and Fortinet OT security for systems that were never designed to be online.
The founder is the engineer. There is no bench.
I'm Nate Howard. I spent fifteen years building and securing infrastructure for Fortune 500 companies at Presidio and Sentinel Technologies — multi-site networks, complex security architectures, environments where failure was expensive.
Third Level IT applies that discipline to regulated organizations that can't justify an enterprise integrator's overhead. When you call, you get the person who designed your network, wrote your remediation plan, and will sit across from your examiner if you want.
Your regulator doesn't grade effort. It grades evidence. I build infrastructure that produces it.
Nate HowardFounder & Principal Engineer
A defined path from finding to closed.
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Assessment
I review your environment against the framework that applies to you — or against the findings you've already been handed. Every conclusion is backed by device output, not a questionnaire.
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Remediation plan
A prioritized plan mapped to the specific controls your examiner or assessor cites. Written in plain language your board can read, with costs and sequencing attached.
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Execution
I do the engineering: firewalls, segmentation, access control, monitoring, backups. As controls close, the evidence file grows with them.
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Ongoing operations
Optional. Managed infrastructure and fractional CTO retainers for clients who want the posture maintained, not just achieved.
Failed an exam? Facing CMMC? Inherited a network nobody documented?
Call me directly. I'll tell you within one conversation whether I'm the right fit — and if I'm not, I'll point you to someone who is.