Reunion visit results in legacy student

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Elizabeth Lamark

Mike Tosti '86 (computer engineering) places the legacy pin on his son, Daniel, who started his first year at RIT this fall.

An unplanned tour of campus during last year’s Brick City Homecoming & Family Weekend is the reason Daniel Tosti is a third-generation student at RIT.

Daniel tagged along with this dad, Mike ’86 (computer engineering), to Mike’s 30th college reunion last year. Daniel, a high school senior at the time in Los Angeles, was impressed. He liked the photography program and the campus, so he included RIT in his 10 college applications.

In August, Daniel became an RIT Tiger.

“We were ecstatic when Daniel chose RIT because of the school and because now he is going to be close to us for four years,” said his grandfather, Don Tosti ’75 (continuing education), who lives in the Rochester area.

Don attended RIT at night and studied electrical engineering while working at Rochester Gas & Electric in Rochester as a meter reader. It took him nine years to get his degree, he said. After he got it, he was transferred to the electrical engineering distribution group at RG&E and worked his way up to safety director. He worked at RG&E for 33 years.

Mike picked RIT because it was one of the few schools that offered computer engineering. He worked at Eastman Kodak Co. as a software engineer and then moved to the Los Angeles area to work for the visual effects company Cinesite. He is currently director of technology for Technicolor. His name is listed in the credits of 20 movies, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 .

Don and Mike spoke at the Legacy Family Pinning Ceremony in August welcoming other legacy families with similar stories.

“Our alumni are part of RIT for Life around here,” said Lisa Cauda, vice president of Development and Alumni Relations. “We don’t use it as a tag line. We mean it.”