Peer perspectives:
By Margaret Steen
... analog to digital
Merhar's first job after college was with a television station in Boston. His career since then has taken him from building microprocessor equipment, to working on video games, to his current specialty, networking.InfoWorld: What do you want to accomplish in the next 20 years?
Merhar: For many years, my aspiration was to be a consulting engineer at a big company. To some extent I obtained that position at a previous job. A chief technology officer role is the kind of thing I really aspire to.
InfoWorld: What key changes in the industry have you seen during your IT career?
Merhar: IT is now really recognized as a business asset rather than as an expense item. People talk about business-critical applications and networks and mean it.
InfoWorld: What advice would you give to someone starting out in IT today?
Merhar: Don't fall in love with one technology. In the long run, it's the fact that you know how to solve problems, think creatively, and work in a team that will help you.
... staying on key
Chou came to the United States from Taiwan after college and began training to be a piano technician. Then his teacher bought a TRS-80, which they programmed to determine the best string sizes for restringing pianos. Eventually Chou got his master's degree in computer science, created the first dBase language compiler, and started his own company. Today he works at Icon.InfoWorld: What made you stay in IT for 20 years?
Chou: The money is definitely better than a lot of other industries. You get paid for what you can do vs. how good you look or how fast you can run.
InfoWorld: If you could start your career over, would you choose the same path?
Chou: I would probably still be doing some entrepreneur-type stuff. It's much more interesting, even though life [as an entrepreneur] can be difficult sometimes.
InfoWorld: What do you see when you look in your IT crystal ball?
Chou: I see Microsoft's dominance being reduced somewhat, and I see software like Linux being much more accepted.
... blueprint for success
Masloff began her career as an architect but moved on to a master's degree in computer science and her first IT job: teaching a CAD program to users. From there she became "the computer person" for a small organization and eventually grew into IT management for larger organizations.
InfoWorld: What do you like about working for an academic institution?
Masloff: The people are more interesting than you get in corporate America, and I've always liked students.
InfoWorld: Why don't you think there are many women in IT?
Masloff: I think our society still sees math and technical areas as a male-oriented thing. It's still there in our society that this is something women aren't capable of doing.
InfoWorld: How could IT become a better field to work in?
Masloff: I think it's coming: Companies have to realize how important IT is to running a business. That happened here; this is why I'm here in the first place.