Nicholas - Almaden Intern
Summer 2002

Meet Nicholas - Extreme Blue Class of 2002, IBM new hire 2003

In the summer of 2002, Nick was hand-picked to participate as the systems architect intern at Extreme Blue™ Almaden. He's now enjoying a full-time IBM position as the Extreme Blue site systems architect. In December 2002, he earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University. While attending MSU, Nick worked at the Physics Department on various projects, including an autonomous hexapod robot and a helpdesk Web ticket tracker and e-mail parser--which is in production today at the MSU Physics Department. Nick shared some insight on his experience with the Extreme Blue program and how it's impacted his current role at IBM.

Nick, tell us some about the work you focused on during your internship?

I worked with Steve Dale to revamp the Almaden systems infrastructure that summer before the session started. As the Systems Architect intern, I was responsible for providing help and support for all of the projects. I was especially involved with the Grid project that summer. I was able to help the team build a mini, self-contained grid so they could do their replication and coding. We actually brought that grid over to Armonk when we did the demos for the Extreme Blue Expo.

How was the overall experience for you?

It was fantastic! The cool thing is that I was able to leverage some of my background in systems administration, architecture and planning. I also had the opportunity to work under Steve Dale, who provided me a great deal of leeway, and got the chance to shape things the way I envisioned them for the students that summer.

How do you think the Extreme Blue internship benefited and prepared you for your current and future role at IBM?

I learned so much from my internship. Even when I went back to school and continued my job at the Physics Department, I brought back some ideas and best practices that I implemented before I left. Currently, I'm doing cross-site, common-systems framework for the U.S. Extreme Blue team. This work is really a direct transfer of what I was doing as an intern, so the hand off was really smooth. I've been using Linux for eight years, but without the understanding I gained from Extreme Blue about how Linux works in the corporate world, I would have been ill prepared for this. The starting point for my learning began as early as day one of my internship, where I learned it was indeed OK and possible to solely use Linux in an IBM corporate environment--which really exceeded my expectations.

How has the Extreme Blue experience helped you professionally? What is the most valuable lesson you learned? What skills have you developed?

I definitely gained some leadership skills. The amount of knowledge (and people) I had access to--and the freedom I was given to work with this knowledge--did wonders for my leadership confidence. This is the foundation for much of the leadership I'm exhibiting today in my current role as systems architect. I've also gained a clear understanding of ROI and that technology is pretty useless in the real world unless it has some business impact.

What were your expectations about the Extreme Blue program? Did your internship experience deliver on those?

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. The only knowledge I had about the program was what I read online and what I was told during my interviews. But I did let my imagination go wild about what to expect that summer, and I was still completely blown away--which is impressive.

Were you also impressed with your Extreme Blue peers? Do you still keep in contact with them?

I was really impressed with how intellectually stimulating everyone in the group was. I felt like we were all on the same level in respect with technology--and even on a broader scope in general. Not only was it enjoyable to discuss in-depth technical issues, but I also have great memories of just hanging out with people or traveling to the city.

Would you consider being a mentor on a project, once you leave the Extreme Blue group?

Yes. I would love to be a mentor. In fact, I'll be a supplementary mentor on the Linux desktop project this summer working with John B. Walicki.