Ernest Friend

Ernie Friend is an Instructional Program Manager at Florida State College, Jacksonville (FSCJ). He manages a two-year college credit networking degree with approximately 2000 students that specialize in CCNA, CCNP, Voice, Security, Virtualization, and Open Source Operating Systems. In addition, he created and manages a B.A.S. in Computer Networking degree with approximately 650 students. He has created partnerships with some of the biggest names in IT including Cisco, EMC, VMware, Citrix, and others, and has considerable experience in working with the regional business community to create new and innovative programs that address the needs of the regional IT workforce.

Ernie holds a B.S. degree in Electronics Management from Southern Illinois University and a Master's in IT Security from the University of South Florida. He has more than 25 years of Information Technology management and academic experience in the military and with FSCJ. Since 1994, working at FSCJ he has been involved in many phases of computer networking infrastructure management and design.