Our Founder — Alhadeff
A Different Vision for IT Certification Training
Boost eLearning was founded on a conviction that most IT training programs were solving the wrong problem. The market was full of video libraries, slide-based lectures, and practice tests — content that could help someone recognize an answer on an exam but would leave them unable to execute the same task on a live network 30 days later. Alhadeff believed there was a better way, and built Boost eLearning around it.
The Core Belief: Hands-On or Nothing
From the beginning, the defining principle at Boost eLearning was that no certification course should ship without a hands-on component. Alhadeff had seen what happened when IT professionals learned entirely from slides: they passed exams at adequate rates, but struggled when they had to apply concepts to real systems under pressure. Live Labs — real, browser-accessible environments running actual tools and configurations — became the non-negotiable foundation of every Boost eLearning course.
This was not a popular or obvious commercial decision in the early years. Live Lab infrastructure is expensive to build and maintain. It requires constant updates as software versions change and exam blueprints evolve. But Alhadeff’s position was consistent: if we cannot honestly tell a learner that they practiced on the real thing, we cannot honestly offer them a Pass Guarantee. The two commitments were always connected.
Building the Instructor Network
Alhadeff’s second major focus was the quality of human instruction. A well-designed course taught by a mediocre instructor produces mediocre outcomes. Boost eLearning built its Certified Partner Instructor network by recruiting active practitioners — engineers, architects, and consultants who held the certifications they taught and worked in the field, not just in classrooms. The result is an instructor network where the person delivering a CCIE lab session has configured those same technologies in production environments.
The instructor vetting process Alhadeff put in place — combining technical certification verification, instructional skills assessment, and ongoing peer review — remains one of the most rigorous in the industry. It is also one of the reasons the Pass Guarantee is financially sustainable: when instructors are this well-qualified, pass rates hold.
The Skills-Retention Framework
Beyond Live Labs and instructor quality, Alhadeff recognized that instructional design at most training companies stopped at delivery. A learner sat a class, took notes, and was sent to schedule their exam. What happened to retention over the following weeks was treated as the learner’s problem.
Boost eLearning’s Skills-Retention framework — Skills Development, Retention, Application — was built to change that. Spaced repetition, scenario-based exercises, and post-training reinforcement materials are engineered into the course structure itself, not added as optional supplements. The goal is that a learner who completed a Boost course 60 days ago can still execute a complex configuration task without reviewing the material from scratch.
The Commitment Going Forward
More than 20 years after founding Boost eLearning, the commitments that defined the company from the start remain unchanged: Live Labs in every course, instructors who are genuine practitioners, a Pass Guarantee backed by actual confidence in the curriculum, and a focus on retention that outlasts the exam window.
The technology landscape has changed significantly over two decades. Cloud platforms, DevSecOps pipelines, zero-trust architectures, and AI-augmented operations have expanded the surface area of IT certification enormously. Boost eLearning’s response has been to keep pace with those changes at the curriculum level while maintaining the instructional standards that have always been the company’s foundation.