Earl Rynerson grew up on a farm near Lexington, Kentucky. The eldest son of five children, Earl put himself through college (attending the University of Kentucky) by obtaining multiple scholarships, and working throughout the school year to pay for college expenses. In May of 1974, Earl graduated as an Air Force 2nd Lieutenant, with a BA in Political Science, and went on to obtain his MBA in Management.

Earl served on Active Duty in the Air Force Strategic Air Command from 1975 until 1981. In 1984, he re-joined the Air Force and remained an Air Reserve Officer until 1997. A decorated Gulf War Veteran, Earl served in both Desert Shield and Desert Storm Operations in the Middle East Gulf region. (Earl was a member of one of the first US aircrews to land in Saudi Arabia after the Iraqi invasion.). Earl is now a retired Lt Colonel, having served 20 years in the military.

Earl also spent 20 years (1981 to 2001) as a Sales and Marketing Executive in the high-tech industry (computer hardware and software), having been employed by companies such as Hewlett Packard and Commerce One, (one of the fastest growing E-Commerce companies in the 90’s), in the San Francisco Bay area. Earl became a noted expert in E-Commerce and E-Business and became a senior consultant for E-Business in the late 1990’s, employed by consulting firms like Benchmarking Partners of Cambridge, MA.

Volunteer community involvement includes: President of the Board of Directors of Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Professorial Lecturer at Golden Gate University, teaching graduate-level Business Management and Marketing courses, chair of the Appeals Committee of the United Way and served as a member of the Treasure Island Restoration Advisory Committee, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission as well as the San Francisco Human Services Commission, a 350 million-dollar City Department that oversaw spending on a variety of social service contracts and programs. Other affiliations: Participation in Leadership San Francisco and participation as a finalist in The President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.

While serving on the Human Services Commission, Earl discovered how much waste and fraud occurred within many of the spending contracts, and wrote “Proposition E”, a bill that would provide increased services & housing (instead of cash payments) to thousands of the city’s homeless (most of whom had a drug or alcohol addiction). Although the measure was defeated at the time, it was resurrected two years later by City Supervisor Gavin Newsom who was able to get it passed by the voters and is now Mayor of San Francisco.

Earl moved to Fort Lauderdale 8 years ago and since then has purchased a small business which he has grown into one of the premier specialty tile & stone companies in South Florida (CLAD Tile & Stone). Earl would like to make the same positive growth happen for the entire city of Fort Lauderdale.