Alums with hot jobs

Arvin

"If you want challenges and you want to be pushed to the limit, Extreme Blue is the place to be," said Arvin an Extreme Blue program alumnus and technical operations member of Storage Software Product Development.

Joining IBM as a storage test engineer in 1999, Arvin served as a business lead in the Extreme Blue Almaden Lab this past spring.

"Extreme Blue was an opportunity for me to really do some hands on stuff from a business perspective, and, at the same time, tie in the technical attributes," said Poole.

Working with two project teams in the areas of grid computing and storage software, Arvin explored marketing strategies and developed business case studies for the team's technical products, set timetables for deliverables, and worked to enhance team productivity.

"Both projects gave me a sense of true ownership through self-management, but equally important was balancing team responsibilities," he said.

For Arvin, the internship was a powerful educational experience. Studying the building and maintenance of relations with business partners, he learned about the entry and placement of products into the market. He also learned to identify the pieces of information vital to the decision-making process and recalled important lessons in time management, team collaboration, quality assurance, and enhanced efficiency.

Arvin said he has stayed in touch with his fellow Extreme Blue alumni and has worked to recruit student interns to join IBM full time.

"Extreme Blue opens up those doors in networking opportunities. In pretty much every part of the company, Extreme Blue has some impact. Out of Extreme Blue, I was able to land a very visible opportunity working with the storage software product development group."

Working with the vice president of Systems Group, Storage Software Product Development, Arvin helps promote fluidity and continuity of IBM's storage software development operations, from the inception of a product's design to manufacturing and sales. He assists in the decision-making process and looks at the day-to-day status of development, searching for ways to improve processes, augment collaboration, and enhance efficiency.

"I wanted to leverage both my business and technical skills," said Arvin, who boasts both a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama-Huntsville and an MBA from the University of Arizona. "This role gives me the opportunity to do that." As he looks toward the future, Arvin sees an ambitious and busy road ahead. "Long term, I want to be a change agent, a leader in this company," he said. "I want to make the tough decisions."

Long term, his admirable streak of altruism will assuredly continue as well. Having served as Western regional alumni program chair and Tucson alumni extension president of the National Society of Black Engineers, Arvin worked to encourage and advise minority youth in their pursuit of an engineering career. He worked for three years on the Try-Math-A-Lon program, which engages pre-college students in a dynamic and competitive environment with the ultimate goal of increasing their SAT/ACT scores. Now a member of the National Black MBA Association, he serves as an advisor to the University of Arizona Black MBA business case team as they prepare for a national competition.

As for himself, Arvin is content with the track he has chosen. "IBM is not just any company; 10 years in a row we have been the world patent leader in the private sector, with some of our newest patents in the areas of grid computing and storage software. One of the things people in this industry wish they could do is work for a company of this caliber," he said. "I feel blessed."