Real People

[Eileen Boerger] [Robert Damiano] [James Troisi] [Wally Rhines] [Paul McKenney] [Robert Down] [Kristen Accardi] [Amanda Hosler] [Angelina Todorova] [Olga Tkachyshyn] [Rhonda Lester]
[Will Shaver] [Diana Carroll] [Farooq Sultan] [Chris Ostmo]
[Mary Coucher] [Karol Rengifo]

From Corporation CEOs and Executives to PhD students to Project Managers to Programmers to Software Engineers to Analysts to Undergraduate Computer Science Majors…

...read here about what SUCCESSFUL REAL PEOPLE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE have to say!

Who: Executive Vice President and General Manager of Agilis Solutions, a software development firm within the corporate entity CorSource Technology Group, employing approximately125 people throughout the Pacific Northwest and up to 1000 internationally, with an offshore development center in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Never stuck in a rut: “The beauty of computer science is that you are not stuck in one thing, you can be performing your skill but can be in almost any industry that might interest you. Your job is to make a business more productive and less costly using computer technology, and you could do it for an environmental issue, the retail industry, a medical field, anything!”

Blazing the Oregon and world trail: “I look for people onshore (US) and offshore. The onshore people have had experience developing software and working within different industries. They work directly with customers and have to be able to have the experience and maturity to work with those customers. The positions in our off-shore center are lower-level detailed design, coding, and testing.”

What it takes: “An understanding of the business aspects of business, communications, teamwork, and creativity. The creativity has to be tuned in to context and constraints, and sometimes the context makes you have to be extremely creative. People who can look at problems in many different ways in order to solve them are very valued.”

Start anywhere: “Whatever jobs you have while you’re young, if you work for example at a grocery store or a coffee shop, my advice is to do a little bit extra on any job you are doing to learn about the business and understand the use of computers in the business. Computers cut across everything.”

Who: Fellow, and Vice President for Advanced Technology at Synopsys, an electronic design automation (EDA) software firm with 60 offices worldwide. Synopsys employs approximately 250-300 people at its Hillsboro location.

Dynamiting science: “If you really want to apply science or math that you know, combining it with computer science is dynamite; it’s very powerful. The guy that works next door to me is a physicist, and he applies his background in physics and mathematics to develop the projects he works on. If you want to do science and want to see the practical aspects of science, you have to go into computer science.”

Driving for answers: “We like to see high achievement in the foundations of science, a very strong math background, communication skills, and something more elusive like drive. The people who succeed are people who never stop challenging themselves and will drive themselves until they get the answer. It also requires a very high level of creativity…these algorithms that you use, they come in many flavors, and you think, ‘Can I find a different flavor?’” Head of the class: “Rather than a background in just computer science, I look for those with electrical engineering or mathematics or all three.”

Freedom to be me: “You have an enormous amount of freedom in doing this work. You are given this problem and told to go solve it, and the determining factor over why one company is successful and one is not is the details in how the problem is solved. That is both daunting and liberating. You work individually, but there is a social level. You don’t have to be in the office five days a week… you can go to a library, you can do research at a university. It is an incredibly rich life, almost like an academic life, except the pay rewards are much better.”

Who: Business Alliance Manager, IBM. IBM employs approximately1900 people in the Pacific Northwest, and 1,000 at the Beaverton, Oregon site alone. The Beaverton site houses the Linux Technology Center, IBM Global Support, and an emerging software development center involved in a variety of areas.

What it takes to get there: “All hiring managers at IBM are interested in hiring from Oregon schools. We especially look for those students that do well in the areas of logic, be it mathematics or computer science, and have good communication skills. There is often specific knowledge that is beneficial for a specific job, but we also often hire bright generalists who understand the computer science field and then train them to be experts in specific fields. We typically look for students with at least a bachelor’s degree. The person’s GPA, what kind of projects they have done in school — especially those projects that involved multiple people — and their communications skills are part of the criteria used in their evaluation.”

Global teaming: “Every project IBM develops has at least 2 if not 22 people working on it. So we’re looking for people who are team players. Many projects have teams that include members from all over the world – a new hire might end up working with someone from Hursley, England, with someone in Böblingen, Germany or Toronto, Canada. Using experts from around the world makes it easier for IBM to produce products that sell in the global market.”

Excited by computer science: “Computers are changing the way every society works at an extremely fast pace. It is exciting to be part of a team that decides how the world can be improved via technology. It also doesn’t hurt that the field is well paying and provides a flexible work environment.”

Who: CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mentor Graphics, headquarted in Wilsonville, Oregon. Mentor is a huge electronic design automation corporation employing approximately 4200 people world-wide at 28 engineering sites and 48 sales offices around the globe, including1000 employees in Oregon alone.

Change the world: “If you like to solve problems, if you get excited by things that are changing the world that you can see around you, if you are interested in innovating products, these are all good reasons to get into computer science and engineering. If you have an interest in things that are mathematical or scientific, computer science is a great way to bring together those things for practical solutions.”

Travel the world, literally or virtually: “One of the great things about the electronic industry in general is it is an industry dominated by the US but affecting the entire world. Many people who work for us frequently travel the world because we sell more than half our products outside of the United States. Many people work right here in the US and communicate via e-mail and other ways. You are always dealing with people of other nationalities.”

Wanted: really good people: “We always have a shortage of really good people. We actually have to hire more than half our engineers from out of state, just because of supply and demand. We would prefer to hire them from Oregon because people are more likely to accept offers and become long term employees.”

What it takes: “When we look for employees we look for outstanding people in an area; if they are outstanding at what they did, then they can probably adapt to new areas. Computer science is a great major because it gives you the tools and expertise that you acquire in many different areas. All our jobs require a BS as an absolute minimum.”

On the importance of people: “We don’t have factories or inventories, so our assets are the people that work here; management of a software company is pretty much all about who we hire, how long we keep them, how productive they are, and how happy we can make them.”

Who: Distinguished Engineer, Linux Technology Center, IBM. BA Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University (OSU); MS Computer Science OSU, PhD Computer Science and Engineering Oregon Graduate Institute.

Hardest decision: “In high school, I agonized over whether to join the military or work my way through college. I have since learned that although decisions like these are important, what is infinitely more important is to fully commit yourself once the decision has been made.”

Most fun project right now: “Helping Linux [open-source operating system started by Linus Torvalds in 1991] support real-time workloads on computers with many CPUs [central processing units].”

Faster than a human reflex: “One application of my current work is developing real-time servers for multiplayer video games, which must respond faster than human reflexes. This real-time capability might also be useful in financial markets, and in many other situations as well. Either way, the fastest equipment wins the game!”

Importance of math and science: I have used calculus to solve real world problems a number of times, and even differential equations from time to time. I’ve also used some very strange statistics to solve a navigation problem involving a submersible surrounded by lots of noisy sea life. Normal statistics just doesn't cut it when more than half of the data is erroneous.”

Favorite quote: “Go to the boundaries between fields. I heard this from a speaker at my sister’s commencement. I think of it like plate tectonics; the real excitement happens where the plates grind against each other. So, if you want to be at the cutting edge of your field, go to its ‘ring of fire.’ Yes, it is risky there, but never boring!!!”

Who: Manager, Plexis System Healthcare, formerly, co-owner and co-founder of InfoStructure, BA Computer Science, Southern Oregon University (SOU).

Working in an electronic world: The department that I run now at Plexis is EDI which stands for Electronic Data Interchange, and it’s a hot topic in the healthcare information systems realm right now. The government stepped in a few years ago and said, okay, we’re tired of the healthcare industry being 20 years behind, so they said, we are forcing everyone to work in the electronic world.”

Keeping minds creative: “A lot of computer firms try to create a relaxed atmosphere for creative minds so there are a lot of little perks to keep the mind creative. You don’t clock in right at 8 or 9. We get to play all day, doing problem solving that could be a chess game or could be a real-world scenario. Here at this company we have a large game room — it has badminton, air hockey, foosball, and a pool table. We also have yoga and karate classes at lunchtime, and any time we want to go and take a break, we can. We live in our minds and sometimes we need a break from our minds. Our investment is in the people that walk in and out the door. “

Favorite quote: Pink Floyd: “All you touch, all you see is what your life will ever be.”

Bleeding edge technology: “One of the things that SOU helped me with, is kind of being part of that bleeding edge technology, technology that’s not really out in the market yet but is out there to play with as a student, and has the potential to become consumer products. So from 90-94, the Internet was more like a computer science fascination, and the students and faculty would play around with this thing. Months later, after we graduated, we created a company called InfoStructure, and it was one of the first Internet providers in Oregon. It has been very successful.”

Who: Linux Progammer, Intel. BS and MS Computer Science, Portland State University; BS Film & Video, Rochester Institute of Technology.

Switching from film to computer science: “I picked film and video as a career path right out of high school, but a career in that field was something totally different, so I went back to school in computer science. I was really surprised to find out that at its core what excited me about film & video also made me excited about the computer work. In film, you have scenes that you have to stream together to evoke whatever feeling you want. With computers you have these chunks of things like applications program interfaces, and you have constraints, but you have to find some way to string these things together to do the job the way you want the program to do.”

Interning to employment: “I took as many coops [internships] as possible while in school. For the last coop I wrote vice drivers for network adapters, and Intel offered me a job before I even graduated.”

A million ways to cool: “It is surprisingly creative work. There are usually a million different ways to solve a problem, and it’s fun to come up with the way that you enjoy the most, whether it’s making the coolest abstractions, or the quickest solutions.”

If only I’d known then…: “In high school, I watched way too many TV movies that showed one-dimensional computer scientists as pocket-protecting geeks. I was also really worried about failing, and worried that I wasn’t as “hardcore” that I needed to be, which also wasn’t true at all. It turns out you can have other interests and be good at computer science. Programmers have lives, they are real people, many in their 20’s and 30’s who go snowboarding, have families, have interests.”

Favorite flix: “Almost anything the Cohen brothers have released.”

Who: Senior, University of Oregon honors college, pursuing computer science Computer science courses taken in high school: “None, they didn’t’ offer any.”

Loves and logic: “I have a love of the abstract, I love what is math oriented, like theoretical computer science, the question of what machines can and can’t do, and logic programming.”

Finding the human dimension: “People don't see the human dimension. Also, at the entry level I didn’t understand that the code I would be writing is very similar to a language like Spanish. Programming languages have syntax, semantics, and rules, and the way you write makes a sentence.”

Inspiring internship: “After my sophomore year, I took part in this national program through the Computing Resource Association called the Distributed Mentorship program. I worked with a Northwestern University linguistics professor whose research was on how we use gestures to communicate. I was helping her program a robot to create gestures as it was explaining how to get from point A to point B. Basically I learned if we can make a robot act like a human, it allows us to learn more about ourselves.”

Favorite college courses: “The honors classes I took which were very eclectic. It was really easy to see, while studying literature and history how technology has developed to enhance certain features of life.”

Most fun group project: “For my User Interface class, we completely designed this thing called Fridgewidget. It is a screen that would go on a refrigerator and keep an inventory of food, make grocery lists, come up with recipes that you can make from the food you already have, and even tell you the nutritional value of each meal.”

Favorite online or video games: “When I can get my hands on them, the Sims, World of Warcraft, Doom 3.”

Who: Software Engineer II, Key Technology, Medford. BS Computer Science, Southern Oregon University (SOU), MS Mathematics, University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

A childhood interest: “My father bought a computer for our home when I was in junior high school and I enjoyed playing archaic games on it, like Pac Man. I became interested in learning how these games were created and I began to experiment with my own programs by the time I was in early high school.”

From college to work: “Key Technology interviewed me a few months before my graduation, and I was hired shortly after that.”

Know that math: “A strong understanding of math is a basic requirement for programming, while the level of math being used varies with the type of programming that is being performed.”

Peas and algorithms: “We build vision sorting systems that process many types of commercial products. Some of these products include: peaches, peas, cherries, green beans, potato chips, and pharmaceutical products. As products go through a machine, the vision system identifies which ones need to be removed and the products are sorted according to the algorithm we have developed.”

Down with cubicles: “Some might think we sit in some small cubicle writing code with no outside contact, but that’s not the case. We have to effectively communicate with electrical and mechanical engineers, other software engineers, production managers and our customers in industry.”

Most exciting aspect of work: “When I first started, every time that I finished a task it was really exciting for me. Now it’s exciting when I realize that, because we distribute internationally, people all over the world are routinely using the software that I’ve helped create. Currently, our international clients include companies with operations in China, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany, and a few other European countries.”

Excelling in computer science: “Computer science is great for people who like to continuously learn; it’s never the same thing each day.”

Life after work: “I love fishing, the outdoors and hiking. Here in Oregon, I mostly fish for trout but occasionally I head over to the coast to do some crabbing. I also like to create and edit movies of my outdoor adventures that I send to my relatives in Bulgaria.”

Who: Ph.D. Student, Texas A&M, Computer Science, BS Computer Science and Mathematics, Western Oregon University (WOU)

Goal: "To get a Ph.D. in Computer Science over the next three-four years. After that I would like to work at a national lab, industry research lab, or as a college professor."

Favorite Quote: "Veni, vidi, vici" (Latin - I came, I saw, I conquered). To me this means if I see a problem I have to solve it."

Courses in high school that prepared her for college: "I went to high school in Ukraine, which emphasized analytical skills and focused on math and science, such as physics and chemistry. However, I did not work with computers until I joined the Computer Science program."

Professional history: "As a graduate student, I work in the parallel and distributed computing research area, which is not main-stream but is rather geared towards scientists in highly computational fields, such as nuclear physicists, biologists, geoscientists. The large problems they work on are frequently impossible to compute on a consumer-level computer or would take years to solve, so scientists resort to supercomputers which have thousands of processors working in unison. I work on generic tools that the scientists can use to write and run their programs on these large machines. As I move up the career ladder, I will do less and less programming and more problem solving and management of projects."

Most exciting aspect of work: "I enjoy having a lot of input in my research work and am able to take it in new directions; this lets me work in areas as a pioneer. I also enjoy my leadership role in Women in Computer Science group. It is fun to talk with other women who just started out in the field and encourage them."

Most important lesson learned through work: "There are many tools and programming languages out there and it can be overwhelming sometimes. Do not just concentrate on knowing the tools, but learn the general principles, then learning new tools will not be a problem."

Who: Adjunct Computer Science Professor, Western Oregon University (WOU); BS Computer Science, WOU; BA, History, WOU

Most valuable aspect of undergraduate program: “Studying hard and doing well in all my classes helped me get the job I have now. I was recruited to teach at WOU before I graduated. I am teaching 6 different classes this term, all computer science classes.”

Most exciting aspect of your job: “Working with students; when a student is really interested in learning I find that really exciting.”

Crushing false myths: “A lot of people think computer science majors write code all day, but there is more to it than that. There is human interaction with coworkers and clients.”

Biggest college challenges: “When I started the program, the challenge was getting the initial foundation of the language of programming. Once you have that it becomes a lot easier.”

Adjectives that best describes you in high school: “Studious.”

Adjective that best describes you today: “Content.”

Most exciting aspects of undergraduate program: “My classmates. You go through classes with the same group so you really get to know everyone.”

From hobby to degree: “I first became interested in computers during high school, but when I went to college I pursued a degree in history. Later, computers became a hobby to my husband and me. We liked to set up networks in our house and work on computers. That’s what sparked my interest in getting a second degree in computer science.”

Future goals: “To pursue my doctorate and continue to teach.”

Most creative college project: “My senior project. As a group we wrote software for a catering company that would help with their ordering process. It was a two-term project and really something to be proud of.”

Who: Software Engineer, Grain Miller, Inc. BS, Software Engineering Technology, Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT).

Current Position: “I am the sole Software Engineer for Grain Millers Inc. I do both technical and administrative support. This includes writing code, managing production schedules, solving logistical problems, and building systems. It’s a one-man show. I wear many hats, and love it. I design, test, install, train, edit, revise and train some more… “

Company on the move: “Grain Millers has been in Eugene almost 20 years, shipping food to your table. About 170 tons (8 semi-trucks) of grain per day are shipped out of our mill, all under the supervision of software that I’ve written. It is exciting to see software I’ve written being used in a big way.”

What does the software you designed do? “It runs the production and lab, and assists with sales. We have two software packages in use: the accounting software and the software I developed, which assists with production tracking, inventory management, and maintenance schedules. Basically, everything outside of accounting is in the system I created.”

Most rewarding aspect of your job: “Getting to design and implement solutions to problems people have and to know that the software I wrote is being used 24/7 and being relied upon by a mill full of people; to know how their lives have been made easier and production has improved because of my work.”

Having a life: “There are a number of different ways I spend my free time. I have been spending a lot of time with Civilization 4. I also play poker with friends (for money) on a regular basis. I also teach, compete, and DJ in ballroom dance. I went to 10 weekend events in 2005! Through dancing I meet a large number of engineers... more than you'd think.”

Who:Test Research & Development Engineer, Intel, pursuing a Masters in Computer Security at Portland State University (PSU). BS, Computer Security and Information Assurance, Southern Oregon University (SOU).

What does a Wireless Validation Engineer do: “Before a new product goes to market, we test it to make sure it works. I make sure the software works the way it is supposed to and that it will work with other machines. If the software fails you file a bug report to inform them there is a problem and everyone works together to fix the problem. Then you test it again to see if it was really fixed. You have to stop and think, ‘What are the things that could happen, what are the possible scenarios?’”

Playing with technology: “I get to play with a lot of really new technologies that aren’t even on the market yet. I also work with some pretty cool people.”

Rewarding aspects: “Knowing that what we are doing is directly impacting current technology.”

Favorite quote: “I used to think that I would fall apart before the world did, but it is starting to look like it might be a dead heat.” -Anonymous

Advice to women interested in computer science: “I would tell them to go for it; I wonder why there are so few females in computer science. I have never had a problem with my classmates, or my professors, and I have never had a problem on the job. I was surprised that I was the only female. I played the same video games and read the same books as the other students in my classes.”

Opportunities abound: “Computers are where the future is going. Every major field wants their employees to have computer knowledge and computer experience. It is a key skill right now.”

The truth about computer science: “Part of what is confusing for people outside of the computer science field, is there are a lot of different careers that fall under the umbrella term “computer science.” The only common thing is that they all want you to have a computer science degree. You could end up designing and testing components or building and maintaining networks. For example, there are computer science engineers who only work on cell phones.”

Who: Analyst Programmer, Eastern Oregon University (EOU), BS Computer Science, EOU.

Professional history in a nutshell: “I was a Supply Manager for USAID in Egypt before moving to the US to finish my CS degree. Now I am an Analyst Programmer for Eastern Oregon University.”

When did you first become interested in computer science? “When my cousin got a 150K/year job as the chief web designer for a large corporation.”

When did you decide to pursue a career in computer science? “In 1999 when the Y2K scare was at its peak-- so was the demand for IT professionals.”

Something about your work that the average person would not know: “I organize, store and retrieve data, similar to what a librarian does. The difference is that I get to do all that in my office even though the data is actually stored hundreds of miles away.”

Adjective that best describes you today: “Confident.”

Adjective that best describes you in high school: “Unsure of myself.”

Most exciting aspect of your job: “Writing programs that automate reports and data that would otherwise take months to compile manually.”

What skills or traits it takes to excel in a computer science career: “Attention to detail and patience. Sometimes it takes months to write code and you don’t see what you have accomplished until it is actually complete.”

What you would tell a high school student who is potentially interested in computer science: “IT professionals have some of the highest paying jobs fresh out of college and their demand is growing.”

Person most interested in meeting: “Bill Gates.”

Who: Owner, Spawn Technology; Southern Oregon University (SOU)

Tonka trucks or computer science: “My classroom was the first one in the state probably to start using computers in the first grade. I started doing programming at the age of 9.

Math = trouble shooting: “Students can get into computer science without taking a lot of math, but it really helps to take as much as you can, especially statistics. Math helps you learn how to trouble shoot and problem solve so that you don’t need a lot of hand holding when resolving issues in your work. Programmers are generally good at the trouble shooting aspects of their work.”

I’m most proud of…: “Professionally, being able to start a business from the ground up and build a team of great people, and seeing them working as one unit. This is just awesome, and very rewarding.”

Keep up to date or die: “I read a lot of books and online information. I hang around websites of groups that put out technologies that they use to see if my company needs it, and see innovations that are being made. When working with competing bids, when your knowledge of technology goes stale, then you lose business. You have to keep up to date or die.”

Teaming for success: “Being a strong team player is essential, especially in programming. There is very little a person can do on their own in isolation. Programmers have to work with interface designers, understand usability, and do optimization so systems can run better and faster.”

Exciting new opportunity areas in computer science: “Areas that my company has been involved with; instead of running programs that run off a computer, these can run off the web; so it turns your desktop into a worldwide web environment.”

Movie Mania: “I really enjoy movies and have a collection of about 2,000 of them. I like artistic and goofy films. One of my favorites is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

Who: Vice President for Alliances and Business Development, IBM Corporation; BS, Chemical Engineering, Oregon State University (OSU), MBA, University of Portland

1 + 1 = My Future: “I knew in high school that I wanted to be an engineer. I loved chemistry, and I was strong in math. My personality was uniquely aligned with math, so it was never a fearful thing for me. It didn’t occur to me that excelling in math might hurt my social status with the other students.”

Interns wanted: “I didn’t know what a chemical engineer did before I got some experience. Having the internships really turned me around. My internships were at Union Oil in ‘81, I worked for Senator Bob Packwood in my 5th year, during the summer of ’83. Internships really connect the classroom with real life. I was able to see chemical engineering at work.”

Jobbing it: “The job market was very tight when I got out of college, but thankfully I was able to receive several job offers. My work experience was extremely important in differentiating myself.”

Rewards of the job: “I lived in Japan for 8 months when I worked at Tektronix at a fabrication factory. I was a chemical engineer right out of college. At IBM today I manage relationships with major Japanese companies.”

Finding your spot: “A lot of people in the computer science field work at workstations, so depending on the company, you can have the flexibility to telecommute or work at home. Since office space is really expensive, more and more companies are encouraging flexible options.”

Being a team player: “Almost everything is done as a team with team effort in computer science. It’s important to be clear in what you’re trying to get out of an interaction. Be inclusive in language and body language. I work with a lot of people in Japan, France and other countries on the phone, so verbal skills are very important.”

I’m most proud of: “Raising nice children and doing it while still having a fast-paced, mentally challenging job.

Who: System Administrator, Metro One Telecommunications; BA, Computer Science, Western Oregon University (WOU)

Adjectives that best describe you today: “Easy to work with, willing to learn.”

Personalized advising: “I didn’t really become interested in computers until I was in college. I didn’t have a lot of exposure before that. My advisers at WOU were important mentors to me. WOU is small enough that there’s a good chance that your professors can talk to you and advise you whenever you need help.”

Biggest challenges as an undergraduate: “In class you just get the ‘first layer’ of what you need to know but there’s so much beneath that. I felt I needed a lot more time to be ready. By the time I graduated I felt confident to go to work and pick up whatever else I needed for my job.“

Advice for women in computer science: “Computer Science is male dominated, that’s just the way it is and it’s okay. I don’t see more women in the field than I did when I started. Definitely try to do an internship; that is good experience for any student really. Like any other job, as long as you can perform your duties, it does not matter who you are.”

Explore the job market: “I did a few interviews before starting my job. I went to 2-3 job fairs in college in my senior year, and would recommend that. It’s important to get interview skills.

False perceptions of computer science: “There is the idea of computer people sitting in front of a machine all day typing away. I troubleshoot problems over the phone, constantly monitor machines and wait for alerts, interact with users, replace broken computer components, write documentation, work on problems with other groups, etc. Before I was in the field I was not aware of all the other possibilities in IT. “

Rewards of the job: “Resolving issues that directly involve people is a great reward. “