You just never know who you’ll meet at Eastern Florida State College. People come from many different backgrounds and life experiences, and if you take the time to look around as you dart from class to class, you’ll discover that there is an incredibly diverse cast of students, faculty and staff here at the College.
If you’re lucky, you may just meet one of my favorite characters: security officer Jack White, who has worked at EFSC for nearly 13 years. To some, that may seem like a lifetime, but as you get to know him, you quickly realize that his experiences seem to add up to multiple lifetimes.
Jack is much more than a friendly security officer helping to keep our campuses safe. He is a wonderfully engaging storyteller, a cartoonist, a coach, a trainer, an actor — and the list goes on. When I sat down to interview him recently, I learned even more fascinating facts.
Hockey, Cartoons, & More
Originally from the Great White North (Canada), Jack naturally loves all things hockey. He has played and coached for most of his life, passing along the passion to his two sons, one daughter and his grandchildren. His expertise has even extended into technical advising, training and acting cameos in some movies you may have heard of: “The Mighty Ducks”(all three of them), “The Cutting Edge,” “Jack Frost” and “Touch and Go.” He has made multiple celebrity connections, working with actors Emilio Estevez, D.B. Sweeney and Michael Keaton, as well as with with pro athletes Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe. White’s IMDB film credits are more than impressive.
In what seems to be a totally separate lifetime (sometime in the 1980s), Jack worked as a cartoonist for Hanna-Barbera on “The Pink Panther,” and he was design supervisor on an array of cartoons I fondly remember from my own childhood including “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons.” Check out his animation history on IMBD.
A Lifelong Coach
Jack says his favorite role has always been that of a coach, and he continues to see himself as one in his interactions with EFSC students. When I asked him to share some of his words of wisdom for them, he said, “Always have an open mind [with people you meet]; don’t pre-judge. You never know who you are with and what kind of ripple effect it could have on your life.”
Indeed, many of White’s great experiences resulted from the friendly, helpful demeanor he shows to everyone he meets. It led to opportunities he otherwise may not have had, so, of course, going above and beyond for students, faculty and staff also comes naturally to him:
“Last summer, at an event for parents of rising 9th grade students to learn about Dual Enrollment at EFSC on the Melbourne Campus, Officer Jack White was exceptionally helpful. We had a larger-than-expected crowd, and with the rainy weather and construction, some of the parents had difficulty navigating from the parking lot to the auditorium. One father in particular suffered from chronic back pain and opted to wait in the car instead of attempting to walk in the rain. Since Jack is already well-known for his cheerful, helpful presence, I sought him out for assistance. He accompanied the student to the parking lot and brought him and his father directly to the building on his golf cart.”
For this act of kindness — and many other reasons — Jack was named the July 2018 Recruiter of the Month, an award that recognizes faculty and staff members who show exemplary effort in supporting the recruitment of applicants to Eastern Florida State College. (And he even returned at the end of the session to escort the father and son back to their car!)
What’s Next?
So what’s next for Officer Jack White? Although I personally hope he’ll stick around Eastern Florida for a long, long time, Jack says his future plans are to travel more with his wife and to visit his children and grandchildren, who live in Florida, Arizona and Minnesota.
When I asked him to tell me one thing he wishes every student here could know, his answer was simple: “Follow your passion, because when it’s all over, you want to have good stories to tell.”
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