Aubrey Chernick is an entrepreneur with a solid record of cultivating companies and a philanthropist with a life-long focus on educational causes. His current venture is Celerium Inc., a cyber defense company focused on helping improve the cybersecurity posture of enterprise supply chains.
In 1976, Chernick founded Candle Corporation, a software company. Chernick built Candle into a leader in the marketplace for sophisticated software suites that managed the complex mainframe and distributed computing environments of Fortune 500 companies. In 2003, Chernick was named Software CEO of the Year by the Technology Council of Southern California in recognition of his pioneering work in developing world-class systems management software. Candle Corporation provided solutions to corporations around the world, grew to over 2,000 employees, and was sold to their largest customer, IBM, in 2004.
After September 11, 2001, attacks, Chernick started NC4 as a division of Candle and later as a separate company. NC4 focused on providing physical threat information or “situational awareness” to global corporations and was sold to Everbridge in 2019.
In 2018, Chernick launched the Security Token Academy, which focused on a new blockchain-based technology called security tokens, otherwise considered the “Third Wave of a New Financial Internet.” This initiative provided education and insights into new financial directions enabled by advanced use of blockchains via security tokens to enable cross-border liquidity compliant with regulatory requirements for AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know your customers).
Chernick currently runs a cybersecurity company called Celerium that was started as a business unit within NC4. Celerium provides cyber threat-sharing solutions for communities of high-end companies in the Automotive, Defense, and other industry sectors. Celerium also provides cybersecurity solutions to small-and-medium-sized businesses and enterprise supply chains. In 2020, Chernick started the CMMC Academy within Celerium to focus on the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), the new DoD cybersecurity compliance program.
Chernick is also focused on the challenges of the Global Supply Chain – especially from a Ransomware threat point of view.
Aubrey and his wife Joyce have been active in many different aspects of philanthropy.
At the Candle Corporation, Chernick and his employees created The Candle Foundation, the philanthropic arm of that company. This foundation provided funding and resources to focus on the improvement of communities across the United States. One of the programs that The Candle Foundation supported was the Reading to Kids Program, a grassroots organization dedicated to inspiring underserved children with a love of reading.
In 2013, Aubrey sponsored a conference that showcased young female entrepreneurs.
For decades, Chernick and his wife have supported academic programs that introduce young students, often living in economically distressed areas, to computer technology and a potential career in information technology. For example, the Chernicks supported the work of the Foshay Learning Center in its program to provide computer courses to high school students in the inner city of Los Angeles. As an adjunct to the Foshay Learning Center’s program, Chernick introduced an internship program at his Candle Corporation where Los Angeles high school students could enhance their computer skills, which helped them get accepted into college and forge careers in the computer industry.
Over the years, charitable support has been extended to other educational needs. The Chernick family has supported Children Uniting Nations and its Samuel Gompers Middle School in South Los Angeles by funding a computer-technology center and an academic mentor program for at-risk youth. The Chernick’s have supported the Hobart Shakespeareans Program located in a large elementary school in Los Angeles. The Chernicks are also pleased to be supporting the Carson Scholars Fund.
Chernick also serves on the advisory board of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture.
Growing up in Deloraine, a 900 person town in the Canadian province of Manitoba, Chernick moved to Los Angeles, California, to build his software business.