Brent Lemond
Director of Career and Adult Education
Nassau County School District
September 13, 2016 4:03 p.m.
For the second year, the Nassau County School District partnered with Cook Systems International to host FastTrack’D at the Lewis “Red” Bean Nassau Technical Career Center at the Yulee FSCJ campus. This partnership helped the district to launch their new high school Java Programming and Application Development program last year and also put Nassau County on the map as a source for high performing programmers and agile developers. This summer, FastTrack’D produced 12 graduates and drew the attention of some Northeast Florida companies.
The Nassau County School Board’s (NCSB) Career Education Department continually fosters business partnerships for its numerous programs. FastTrack’D, a Cook Systems workforce development solution, draws talented adults and immerses them into an intense and comprehensive full-time curriculum. The rigor of the program is designed to not only train in several technologies, but also to ensure the program’s graduates will out-perform their peers. “I learned more in the first two weeks of this than I did in my entire bachelors’ degree program,” remarked D’Andrick Murphy, a recent graduate of the program. At graduation, these participants have proficiencies in the following:
- Java
- JavaScript
- SQL
- ANT/Maven Build Automation
- Spring/Struts Frameworks
- Linux NFS/VPS Network Security
- Singleton/Factory Design Patterns
- SQL/JDBC Hibernate
- P MVC/JSF/JMS Inversion of Control
- jQuery/JavaScript/CSS3/Angular JS
Career Education Director, Brent Lemond, thinks that the county is on the brink of something big. “We were thrilled to have leaders from CSX and Web.com visit our campus to meet some of the FastTrack’D candidates. We received positive feedback from both, and it lets us know that we are following a good model with our high school program too.”
Jane Landon (SVP & Chief Technology Officer) from Web.com said, “The energy level and passion for solving problems demonstrated by the students was so refreshing. This program looks very promising for our region.”
However, companies aren’t just interested in FastTrack’D graduates. Jacksonville-based software firm Feature 23’s R.J. McDermott sits on the district’s advisory board for the high school program. After FBHS junior Noah Emmons presented an application he developed at a meeting last spring, McDermott was impressed and offered Emmons a summer internship. Emmons has done well, and plans to work for the company full time upon graduation.
The future is bright for Nassau County technology students, and these programs couldn’t come at a better time to meet the workforce needs of a growing area. With FastTrack’D also drawing the nation’s best and brightest to our area for the entire summer, perhaps Northeast Florida will become the next great high-tech community.
Congratulations to all of the Cook Systems 2016 FastTrack’d graduates!