GRAND RAPIDS ? Larry Holland, president of NEM Technology, an Oscoda, Michigan, based authorized Avaya Connect Partner, came to GRRCon Midwest Information Security & Hacker conference at DeVos Place on September 27 to build his corporate brand. At the end of the two-day event, Holland said GRRCon got the job done.

?The solutions area was well laid out,? Holland said. ?The speakers were great. We?re getting sales leads. We?ll definitely come back next year.?

GRRCon Co-Founder Christopher Payne also called the event, the second he has produced, a success as well. The show drew 850 attendees, up 60 percent from 2011. Forty one companies ? including big names in cyber security such as Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Symantec, HP Enterprise Security, Sophos and Websense ? paid for sponsorships, even though only 36 booths were available. Even the Thursday night late night session slash mixer drew 300.

?We?re not going to do it next year because it was too hard on the staff,? Payne said.

GrrCON (pronounced ?Grrrr Con?) offered separate training tracks providing dedicated technical and leadership disciplines in a venue that allows participants to share ideas, information, solutions, forge relationships, and most importantly engage with like minded people in a fun atmosphere. The added wrinkle was free beer and food.

Attending and speaking were black hats, law enforcement and business cyber security professionals who on any given day cross swords on the Internet. Black hats are professional hackers who get paid for penetrating private and government computer networks to steal intellectual property, financial information and much more.

Next year?s hackathon is already set, again for DeVos Place, but earlier in September so GRRCon won?t conflict with Rick DeVos? Art Prize. The dates for the third annual GRRCon conference is Sept. 12-13, 2013.

?It was fun scheduling this with Art Prize, but logistically it?s been a nightmare,? he said. ?Booking hotel rooms for our speakers was a problem. Parking was difficult.?

The content, well, that?s up to the paying clients, Payne said. He?ll listen to the feedback, and see what they like, and don?t like, and make adjustments.

?We?ll improve on whatever people don?t like and rock-an-roll,? he said.

For attendee Steve Surdock, an IT consultant from Grand Rapids, the show was just fine.

?It?s great that we have this kind of opportunity with the level of technology and quality of speakers on display at this show, ? he said. ?The show was very impressive. The pricing was reasonable too.?

The show was a hit with Jerod Brennen (cq) from Jacadts, strategic IT security solutions in Columbus, Ohio. Brennen said his company was trying to establish a presence in Michigan and the GRRCon show offered it the opportunity to do so.

?I?ve also seen a lot of knowledge shared in these presentations,? he said.

Ethical hacker Brian DeLine with Verizon Business came back to the show this year, after attending the first conference last year. He said businesses are just starting to pay attention to cyber security issues, which is good. DeLine, from Hudsonville, spends his time doing ?penetration testing,? that is trying to break into corporate networks to test their vulnerabilities.

So does Nate Drier from TrustWave. The Chicago company offers general security, managed security, encryption and through its SpiderLabs ethical hacking. Drier, who is based in Grand Rapids, said from thousands of forensic investigations and penetration tests, SpiderLabs analyzes corporate IT security, finds the weak spots, and recommend simple solutions.

?It?s nice to have something like this in Grand Rapids,? Drier said. ?It lets students come here to learn about security. I?ve lived in Grand Rapids a long time and a show is good for the area. It puts Grand Rapids on the cyber security map.?

Mike Brennan is senior technology writer for MIBiz. His day job is Editor & Publisher of MITechNews.Com.