Who We Are
Biography - Bernie Francis

Bernie has lived in Carrollton, Texas for close to 30 years where he served on his local City Council three terms in the '90s. He is CEO/owner of Business Control Systems, LP a high-tech professional services firm headquartered in Addison, Texas with branch offices in Austin, as well as Charlotte and Greensboro NC. He is also CEO/owner of First Class Caregivers, Inc., a Dallas-based non-medical care giving company. As an appointee of then Governor Bush, he's a past chair of the Texas State Technical College Board of Regents, a two-year public system specializing in new and emerging technology certificates and degrees. He recently served Governor Perry in two capacities; he's past chair and now board member of the North Central Texas Workforce Board, a 14-county regional arm of the Texas Workforce Commission. And he's recent past chair of the Texas State University System Board of Regents, the policy-setting authority for a billion-dollar higher-ed enterprise consisting of eight regional Texas colleges and universities. He is also an Executive Committee member of the distinguished Governor's Business Council and recently served the governor on two special commissions; Higher Education Incentive Funding and Higher Education and Global Competiveness. Ten years ago, Mr. Francis joined a volunteer not-for-profit board of five members named Senior Quality Lifestyles Corporation with a mission to build the nation's finest resort-style retirement communities for people 62 and over. Edgemere in Dallas, the first, opened its doors in 2001 with that distinction and holds it to this day. Since then SQLC communities of comparable quality have opened in Houston and Austin with two more scheduled in Fort Worth and Corpus Christi. Today SQLC is indisputably its industry's choice for best in class. In July 2009 the policyholders of Texas Mutual Insurance Company, the state's leading provider of worker's compensation insurance, elected Bernie to its board.

Mr. Francis' passion in recent history, in a 'flattened' and intensely competitive world, has been the critical need for improving and expanding post-secondary training and education in Texas. He's married to Dianne and has two children, Chevalier and Michelle.