Professor Barbara Birkett catches up with Alumnus Jayadev Alapati

A chance meeting near 10:00 p.m. in one of the world’s busiest airports, Chicago’s O’Hare, provided a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with a former student, Jayadev Alapati, a graduate of the New Media Publishing program. Jay graciously accepted the request to share some school memories and his career path experience since graduating in 2011.

Jay comes from a printing family, so interest in RIT was a “natural.” Jay says that he was attracted by the School’s strong reputation. He was able to include three computer science courses in his program that, he says, were particularly attractive to Linemark, Inc., where he has worked since graduating. Linemark is a full-service operation, offering offset, digital, and wide format printing along with creative services and e-Business solutions.

Jay’s first position at Linemark was as an Electronic Media Developer; his current position is Manager of Linemark’s e-Business Solutions and Technology. In this position, he leads a team responsible for developing and improving systems used by the production team. Jay says, “We take great joy in creating technology that helps to improve efficiency and to automate production processes.” Further, Jay works with new clients to make sure their systems integrate seamlessly with Linemark’s for orders and communication.

Jay remarks that he wishes that he had taken more than one database management course, for, as he states, he “would have save myself a lot of time if I’d just taken the advanced classes.” Jay’s position clearly requires that he keep abreast of technological changes in his area. He credits Linemark with giving strong support to maintaining technology knowledge. Jay attends trade shows, conferences, and even attended that last two Drupa events (Drupa is a major trade conference held every four years in Dusseldorf, Germany.)

Jay is presently the only RIT alumnus at his location; however, he says he’d like to change this and encourages upcoming graduates to submit their resumes if they are interested in e-business solutions. He notes that many of his classmates and friends are in the Washington, D.C. area and that there is definitely a RIT Alumni network.

Reminiscing about his years at RIT, Jay shares that he especially enjoyed the challenges and camaraderie of working on the Reporter (student magazine), particularly noting the “late night surges of productivity as the team did last minute edits, layout changes and finishing touches to get the magazine ready for production Monday morning.” One thing Jay does not miss: Rochester winters!