Dr. Frazier A. Smith

Current roles

• July 2025 – present
  Department Chair, Network Management, Cybersecurity, and Cloud & Virtualization

  Central Piedmont Community College

  Program areas: Cybersecurity · Cloud & Networking · IT Support
• March 2023 – present
  Instructor, Network Management, Cybersecurity, and Cloud & Virtualization

  Central Piedmont Community College
• October 2025 – present
  Associate Graduate Faculty

  UNC Charlotte — School of Data Science & College of Computing and Informatics
• January 2026 – present
  Adjunct Instructor, Honors Program

  Wingate University

Research focus

The application of artificial intelligence in career-development programs, and the effectiveness of post-secondary career and technical education in preparing students for industry — specifically, how generative AI is reshaping entry-level IT roles, and what community-college curriculum must change in response.

Education

• June 2025
  Ed.D., Instructional Design, Systems, and Technology

  South College
• November 2024
  Ed.S., Instructional Design and Technology

  South College
• February 2023
  M.S., IT Management

  Western Governors University
• August 2018
  M.Ed., Instructional Systems Technology, Training & Development

  UNC Charlotte
• May 2014
  B.M.E., Music Education

  Wingate University

Certifications

• CISSP — Certified Information Systems Security Professional (ISC²)
• Nutanix Certified Professional
• VMware Certified Cloud Infrastructure Administrator 2024
• Double VCP — Data Center Virtualization & Network Virtualization
• VMware Carbon Black Endpoint Protection 2020
• Fortinet FortiGate 7.4 Operator
• CompTIA Network+ ce

Career history

• 2023 – present
  Instructor → Department Chair, Network Management, Cybersecurity, and Cloud & Virtualization

  Central Piedmont Community College
• 2024–2025
  Senior Manager of Solutions Engineering

  Fast Lane US
• 2023–2024
  Leader, Content Development — VMware vSphere Foundation & Cloud Director

  Broadcom
• 2022–2023
  Senior Manager, Technical Content Development

  VMware
• 2021–2022
  Technical Content Development Manager — vSphere / VMware Cloud / HCX / SD-WAN

  VMware
• 2020–2021
  Senior Technical Instructor — Carbon Black & VMware on AWS Lead

  VMware
• 2019–2020
  Technical Trainer

  Anomali
• 2018–2019
  HR Training & Communications Manager

  SnapAV
• 2015–2018
  Mid-Level Manager, Instructional Design

  CPI Security
• 2014–2015
  Program Manager, eLearning

  Belk
• 2011–2013
  Educational Technology Specialist

  Wingate University

Teaching

Speaking topics

Eight talks regularly delivered in keynote, panel, and workshop formats. See /speaking for full abstracts.

• Building one of NC's first associate-degree AI programs — Higher Ed · CTE
• What AI is doing to the entry-level IT job — and what to teach instead — Workforce · Research
• Would You Pull the Lever? Ethical dilemmas in the age of AINSF — Ethics · AI · Workshop
• LLMs, RAG, and agentic development as instructional-design tools — Instructional Design
• Modernizing technical training: ADDIE to Agile at the speed of SaaS — L&D · Industry
• Industry partnerships that actually serve students — Partnerships · CTE
• xAPI and learning analytics for technical training programs — Analytics · L&D
• From the music classroom to the server room: an instructional design career through-line — Career · Pedagogy

Recent talks

• Jun 2026
  AI Revolution: Shaping the Future of Business + Talent in Charlotte Panel

  Charlotte AI Summit · Charlotte, NC
• Apr 2026
  Jobs, AI, and Gaston County: A 2026–2036 outlook, and integration approaches for the area Keynote

  Highland School of Technology — Advisory Board · Gastonia, NC
• Oct 2025
  AI in Education Panel Panel

  Building Bridges Convening · Greensboro, NC

Writing

• What a music-education degree actually transferred to IT leadership (and what it didn't) — Teaching, May 2026
• What I learned standing up an xAPI lab system for a CC cybersecurity program — Instructional Design, May 2026
• Why a 1967 thought experiment is still the right tool for AI ethics — Research, May 2026
• The case for teaching cloud through real infrastructure, not labs — Teaching, Apr 2026
• ADDIE is not the enemy. Pretending you're still doing ADDIE is. — Instructional Design, Mar 2026

Honors & awards

• Worldwide Training Delivery Impact Award
• Worldwide Sales and Strategy Acceleration Quarterly Award — Accelerator
• Team Member Excellence Award
• Best of Show — DevLearn DemoFest (2016)

Service

• 2025 – present
  College Senate and Curriculum Committee, Central Piedmont Community College
• 2025 – present
  Co-Principal Investigator, NSF ATE Generating AI Talent (GAIT) grant — building one of NC’s first associate-degree AI programs
• 2017 – present
  Advisory Board member, Highland School of Technology (Gastonia, NC) — eight years of service