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P R O F I L E
Good things come to those who make Using both sides of his brain, and with empathy, can-do man is engineering a great career in Seattle.
By RICHARD MASSEY Managing Editor
“N othing keeps the phone ringing like a ‘can-do’ mentality,” Parker Wittman says. “Now, this isn’t an invitation to overcommit or overpromise. Instead, it’s a reminder that we’re in business to solve problems – and it often takes an optimistic mindset to unlock a certain level of creative problem solving. Clients stick with the best problem solvers. In my experience, the best problem solvers always operate with the gentle hum of ‘can-do’ playing behind them.” A CONVERSATION WITH PARKER WITTMAN. The Zweig Letter: You have a dual degree from Indiana University, one in physics and one in communications and culture. That’s not a combination you see every day. Tell us how your academic background has shaped your career. Parker Wittman: It’s hard to overstate how grateful I am to my indecisive undergraduate self. As a technical consultant and business leader, my days are filled with chances to put my academic background to use: whether
it’s designing data systems and models to describe the physical world or thinking critically about how to convey an idea to a wide audience. But it wasn’t all part of some master plan. I was just fulfilling the pangs of my ambition and interest before I knew what to do with that ambition and interest. In fact, you could argue that what I did was accidentally cobble together a degree in data science (certainly before it was a field that I knew about!): computational science, data, modelling, statistics, and systems meets design, presentation, and comprehension. And so, this headscratcher of a double major turned into something perfect for me and perfect for an eventual career as a scientist and consultant – two parts of a whole. Right brain/left brain. Science and people. Data and design. Modelling and explaining. It’s a combination that has predicted my career as much as shaped it. When solving business or people problems, I like to bring a sort of systems-based thinking to bear. When building technical solutions for my clients, I bring a people-centric
THE ZWEIG LETTER Aug
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