UWF degree and year of graduation:
BS Computer Science, ’97

As you look back at your days at UWF, describe your best memory.
Getting lost in the woods. They are so beautiful; it turned out to be a great time!

While you were at UWF, what did you think was its most outstanding and/or unique quality?
The quality of the professors. The professors I had were brilliant and took the time to explain what they knew to the class in an engaging and enthusiastic way. They were accessible and possessed a nurturing quality that made me feel very welcomed and taken care of. John Coffey was one of my favorite professors and he was also my advisor. He was brilliant and I had great respect for him. He took the time to share his knowledge with us and his enthusiasm was infectious. I also had the greatest admiration for Professors Hemasinha and Uvah from the Math department. I’d never had professors explain mathematical and logical concepts with such clarity before.

As you reflect, did your education at UWF have an impact on where you are today?
Yes. UWF provided me with an educational foundation to get started. UWF exposed me to different technologies and concepts. When the going got tough in 2001, having a solid foundation and a degree mattered.

Describe what you do/did professionally, including the type of company you work for.
I work for Cisco, a large networking company, as a member of the Telepresence Exchange Business Unit, which is part of the Emerging Technologies Group. Our focus is on enabling TelePresence™ communications. Cisco TelePresence™ creates a live, face-to-face communication experience over the network that empowers people to collaborate like never before. One of the cooler products Cisco offers is the CTS-3000, which provides a boardroom-style table that seats 6 participants on each side, providing a “virtual” table for 12 participants in a point-to-point meeting, or up to 372 participants in a multipoint session. The system provides an optimized experience through integrated equipment, including three 65-inch plasma screens; spatial audio; microphones; lighting; integrated Ethernet and power; and multiple ultra-high-definition codecs and cameras, all of which have been specially tuned to the large-group environment to optimize your experience. The experience is as good as actually being in the same room with the other participants. To learn more about what I do, visit Cisco’s Web site.

What advice would you give students today who were looking to study one of the disciplines in the School of Science and Engineering?
Learn from others’ mistakes, develop and appreciate diversity and strive to be well-rounded. To diversify my skill set, I took massage therapy classes. Not only did that provide a creative outlet for me, but it also makes for an interesting conversation piece. Most people wouldn’t think of a computer person doing something like that. Try lots of crazy things and expand your horizons. Above all, never stop learning.

Share one thing about yourself that would give others insight into your interests, hobbies, etc.
I volunteer for AIDS/Lifecycle, a fully-supported seven-day bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles aimed to end the pandemic and human suffering caused by AIDS. I’m a big fan of power and Olympic lifting, hiking and geocaching.