Leadership

Elaine Horn

META Solutions – Marion, OH

Elaine Horn has supported Cisco Networking Academies since 1998. As the META Solutions’ Program Manager, she addresses instructor issues and needs, teaches CCNA classes, and organizes and presents at state conferences and virtual workshops. In addition, she writes classroom activities, directs state and local competitions, and builds relationships with teachers, state directors, Cisco engineers and partners. Elaine’s goal is to provide teachers with practical skills and knowledge that can readily be applied in their classrooms. She holds a CCNA certification and completed the CCNA Instructor Trainer Qualification process. Before joining the Cisco Networking Academy program, she taught math and computer science courses at Tri-Rivers Career Center in Ohio.

E-mail: ehorn@metasolutions.net
Phone: (888) 828-4798 ext. 12254


Iris Kutch

META Solutions – Marion, OH

Iris Kutch has been a Cisco Academy Support manager since 2016. She originally managed the Towson University ASC servicing the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area. She also managed the Cisco ASC/ITC Support Center at Red River Technologies from 2021 – 2024. Her primary goal is to support instructors and students in the Cisco academies to ensure they have a positive and rewarding experience. She serves on various partnership advisory boards and works with several state educational entities to promote the Cisco academy portfolio. Iris became accredited to teach all the courses aligned with certifications when she taught the curriculum at one of the local high schools in Baltimore County.

E-mail: iriskutch@metasolutions.net
Phone: (740) 389-4798 ext. 12793


Paul Fedele

Calhoun Area Career Center – Battle Creek, MI

Paul Fedele has been a Cisco Academy instructor since 1999 and has trained many other instructors during that time. Primarily, he teaches high school juniors and seniors at the Calhoun Area Career Center (CACC) in Battle Creek, MI. Paul holds current IT certifications from CompTIA (A+, Linux, Network+, Server+), Cisco (CCAI), and SUSE (SCA). He is also certified to teach Math, Computer Science, and IT content in multiple states.

Paul has recently taught the NEW Ethical Hacker course to a special audience: IT Support and Administrative staff from Ohio secondary schools.

Paul supports his students in realizing their full potential through differentiation and collaboration. Many of his students are employed directly from high school in career jobs.

With Paul’s guidance CACC students have:

  • designed, built, and maintained both servers and networks for local schools and non-profits continuously since 2000.
  • designed, built, networked, and maintained flight simulators for the CACC aviation class.
  • designed and built a greenhouse control computer for the CACC agriculture class.
  • designed and built a 14 camera high definition surveillance system for the CACC law enforcement class scenario house.
  • created a web page which students can use to report bullying activity and have open-sourced the code.

Paul presents at state and Cisco Academy conferences about his success in the classroom.

Since 2009, Paul has also assisted in the development of Cisco Academy curriculum (CCNA5, Health Information Networking, IT Essentials 7, IoT Connecting Things) and NDG (Linux Essentials, LPIC-1) curriculum and has served as a member of the Packet Tracer Advisory Board.

E-mail: pfedele@gmail.com