The Passing of Charlie McMickle

"It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Charlie McMickle, director of technology and a guiding force behind our network architecture. He passed away on Friday, August 13, 2010 after a valiant struggle with cancer.

Prior to joining NJEDge.Net in early 2001, Charlie was a key member of the William Paterson University community and an active participant of NJEDge's predecessor, NJIN. In fact, Charlie was responsible for some of the original grants that allowed NJIN to create the first video classrooms in NJ's colleges and universities. For NJEDge.Net, Charlie was instrumental in the development of the design, network architecture and infrastructure we have today. In many ways Charlie was the conscience of NJEDge and had a deep belief that a technology consortium is the optimal way to share methodologies, pedagogies and technologies and was a driving force in the development of NJEDge for the past ten years.

Some of Charlie's major contributions include: the deployment of NJEDge.Net Regional Optical Network; designing the first interactive video classroom deployed to 39 New Jersey colleges; as well as the design and deployment of a digital video satellite uplink and video portal used by all NJ Higher Education institutions.

We will greatly miss our friend and colleague who was always up for a challenge if it would improve services to the NJEDge community. We hope that you will join us at this year's NJEDge Annual Conference on November 18th, when we will celebrate the life and accomplishments of Charlie McMickle. We will provide more information when it is available."

- George Laskaris, President & CEO (behalf of all the staff of NJEDge.Net)

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Charlie's brother, David McMickle, at www.centuryforthecure.com, as he rides in Charlie's honor in the 6th Annual Century for the Cure Charity Bike Ride to benefit The Cancer Institute of New Jersey on Sept. 11, 2010.

NJEDge.Net is a non-profit technology consortium of academic and research institutions in New Jersey. Through its deployment of advanced Internet technologies and digital communication, NJEDge.Net supports its members in their institutional teaching and learning; scholarship; research and development; outreach programs; public service, and economic development. In providing broadband statewide network, NJEDge.Net creates an environment for interoperability to facilitate productive use of technology across the academic enterprise. NJEDge.Net introduces emerging technologies and state-of-the-art networking to its partners in academia, government and industry for inter-institutional collaboration, scholarship and research.