Page 9 - Inventing Tomorrow

He still found a way to connect his technology to his other passion— performance. He joined a student club called Tesla Works and played
a leading role in organizing the CSE Winter Light Show in the fall of 2011. “I’ve always been a person for big shows,” he said. “An audience is really important for me.”
Trimble’s programming skills helped him secure an internship with
National Instruments Corporation in Austin, Texas, between his sophomore and junior years. The following sum- mer he got an internship with Nest Labs in Silicon Valley. This opportuni- ty drew upon the University's alumni network. Grant Erickson (EE '96, M.S. '98) was one of the early employees at Nest, and helped recruit Trimble.
Such internships provide valuable real-world experience, credentials,
and often become a pipeline for recruitment. So it was with Trimble. At the end of the summer, Nest tried to convince him to drop out of school and work full-time. Trimble faced a dilemma well known to many tech wunderkinds—return to school or chase a career opportunity? His family became alarmed at the possibility that he would not nish his degree.
“It was literally traumatic for my mother,” Trimble said.
Taylor Trimble, who majored in computer engineering, is employed as a systems engineer for Nest and writes software programs for products such as thermostats and smoke detectors.
WINTER 2016 9
KELVIN YUE