Dispel’s Origin Story: How a Barn Owl Shaped Our Approach to OT Cybersecurity

Before we ever built an OT cybersecurity platform, we learned a lesson about stealth, adaptability, and trust—from a barn owl named Emily. This is the story behind our logo, and how it continues to shape the way we protect industrial environments.

Whoo's the owl?

This question comes up more than you’d expect—at industry events, on customer calls, or while chatting with someone in line at airport security: 

“What’s with the owl?” 

Fair question. Most cybersecurity companies go with something aggressive—shields, locks, grids, or abstract symbols. 

We went with a barn owl. 

And the reason is simple: it’s not just a logo. It’s a reminder of how we’ve approached security from the very beginning—and it starts well before Dispel even existed.

It Started with Emily

When Ethan (Co-CEO) and I were kids, we had the opportunity to spend a summer in Scotland, where we visited a wildlife center that rescues birds of prey. There were falcons and eagles—huge, high-strung animals trained for falconry. Beautiful, but not exactly hands-on for a couple of curious kids. 

Then there was Emily, a barn owl that had been raised at the center as an injured owlet. 

Unlike the others, Emily wasn’t much for showing off. But she always kept us guessing. 

She’d quietly follow us around the grounds. If she liked you, she’d fly over, cling to your arm, and curl up inside your jacket like it was home. 

She wasn’t loud. 
She wasn’t predictable. 

The Owl That Shaped the Way We Think About Security

That memory stuck with us. 

When we later built Dispel, Emily came back to mind—not because we were thinking about branding, but because she had already taught us something vital: Good security moves like she did. 

She was: 

• Silent 

• Hard to detect 

• Always adapting 

• Never in one place for too long 

• Alert 

That became our blueprint. Security that works silently in the background. That stays out of the way. That protects without disrupting the people doing the real work. 

It inspired our foundation: Moving Target Defense, built into the Dispel Zero Trust Engine. Instead of static systems adding barriers and waiting for threats, our platform continuously shifts remote access points and network pathways. 

Attack surfaces don’t sit still. 
Adversaries can’t rely on patterns. 
And operational teams can work without friction. 

We didn’t want to build security that just sat on the perimeter. 
We wanted motion. 
We wanted unpredictability. 
We wanted cybersecurity that behaves more like Emily—calm, silent, hard to pin down. 

10 Years Later, the Owl Still Guides Us

We didn’t choose a barn owl to be clever or different. 
We chose it because it reflects everything we set out to build. 

In industrial environments, that kind of security matters. Systems can’t afford noise. Operators can’t afford friction. 

Security must be present, but never in the way. 

Now, as we mark ten years of Dispel, it felt like the right time to share where that thinking came from—not a boardroom, not a pitch deck, but a quiet summer in Scotland… and a bird who taught us more than we realized at the time.