Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, John J. “Ski” Sygielski was named the third president of Lord Fairfax Community College (LFCC) in August 2003. Ski leads a seven-person cabinet and the College, which includes three locations—the Fauquier and Middletown Campuses and the Luray-Page County Center—and outreach sites throughout the College’s service region.
Under Ski’s leadership, LFCC serves more than 7,600 unduplicated credit students annually. In terms of student enrollment, LFCC is the eighth largest of the 23 colleges in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS).
Ski’s previous work experiences encompass corporate training; elementary, secondary and post-secondary education; and public- and private-sector consulting. In 1999, Ski was hired as the first vice chancellor for workforce development in the VCCS and was responsible for organizing and developing corporate training units within the state’s community college system. From 1990 until 1999, he developed a corporate training unit at the nation’s then largest single-campus community college (located outside of Chicago) in the United States. In 1997, while working for the community college in Chicago, Ski spent time in India helping to develop a community college in that country. Prior to 1990, Ski developed corporate training and technology transfer units for new lines of computer products at two Fortune 500 companies.
Ski holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, master’s degrees in education and business administration and a doctorate in education. His educational credentials are even more notable, because he is the only one in his working-class family to graduate from high school and college.