{"id":365,"date":"2012-11-30T18:00:49","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T18:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/?p=365"},"modified":"2023-02-22T21:30:24","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T21:30:24","slug":"alumni-spotlight-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/2012\/11\/30\/alumni-spotlight-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Air Force veteran\u2019s
\nComputer Science career
\nTAKES OFF<\/p>\n

Nicholas Timinskas<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Timiniskas-Nicholas-2012.jpg\"<\/a>Nicholas Timinskas (CS, \u201909) is a living testament to the power of determination\u2014and the quality of a CSUN education. After a stint in the Air Force and a few years as a general contractor, he decided it was time for a career change. His exposure to advanced technology in the military inclined him toward a technical field, but there was just one catch: he didn\u2019t consider himself especially computer-literate. He had resisted computers for a long time, considering them little more than a necessary evil.<\/p>\n

As it happens, the very fact that he knew little about computers was what drew Timinskas to them. \u201cI needed to know more about the tools I was using every day,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s the same thing that led me to construction and auto mechanics. I didn\u2019t want to be at the mercy of a contractor or mechanic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armed with the GI Bill, Timinskas, who already had earned several credits in civil engineering, arrived in California from Washington State in January 2007, and because he had visited the CSUN campus several years earlier with a friend and liked its location, it was one of the universities where he was considering enrolling. He met with computer science transfer advisor Jack Alanen, who outlined the course for his career. \u201cAnd by the way,\u201d Alanen told Timinskas, \u201cClasses start tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Timinskas took the plunge, but initially found the going pretty tough. \u201cIt was a big challenge switching from physical science to computer science,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was hard to transition from what you can see and feel to what is completely abstract.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of his first classes was an introduction to programming, and for the first few weeks, he visited the professor, John Noga, during every office hour and had him essentially reteach every class. \u201cI couldn\u2019t thank him enough for all the assistance he gave,\u201d Timinskas says.<\/p>\n

He describes his first year as nonstop work because he felt very much behind his classmates, who were younger and had grown up with computers. \u201cI came from a different upbringing,\u201d he explains. \u201cI really had to dedicate myself to study above and beyond what my peers were doing just to catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He particularly appreciated the valuable interactions he had with many professors, who had been in industry as well as academia and gave firsthand accounts of what to expect on the job. \u201cA lot of the projects they assigned were very relevant and useful\u2014things I could immediately draw upon in my career to be successful,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

His hard work really paid off his senior year, when he was selected for an internship at Amgen through the Honors Co-Op program. He worked at Amgen full time in the summer and part time during the year. He graduated summa cum laude, with a 3.9 GPA, and Amgen extended an employment offer to him as soon as he finished the co-op.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was great because it was an almost seamless transition from school to work,\u201d he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As soon as he joined Amgen, Timinskas became part of its College Hire Network, which cast him as a recruiter for the company and brought him back to the CSUN campus, where he maintained connections with the dean and faculty and was directly responsible for helping five CSUN students find jobs at Amgen. He also got his own career off the ground, starting out in information security, where he did forensic analysis and malware detection for a couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmgen encourages you, especially in your first five years, to not get pigeonholed in one area but to branch out and see what else is going on in your career field,\u201d he explains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From information security, he switched to global commercial operations and became the portfolio manager for more than 150 projects, which he managed from budgeting, scheduling and resource allocation to reporting and working with project managers to make sure they had the tools and resources needed. When Amgen set up a project management office, Timinskas became part of it and now is helping to drive best practices in project management, managing big projects himself and training others to take on the role as well.<\/p>\n

Something of a Renaissance man, in his spare time, he helps friends out with construction needs and works on the yard of a house he and his wife recently bought, in addition to writing a historical novel on the first World War. He also enjoys football, cooking and making short documentary movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve written my whole life, but mainly short stories and novellas,\u201d he says. \u201cI enjoy telling stories.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last May, Timinskas had a chance to try his hand at another kind of writing\u2014as the keynote speaker at the CECS commencement in May. His address about knowledge vs. wisdom and finding one\u2019s purpose in life was very well-received. And given his penchant for boldly embracing new opportunities, it just might signal yet another direction in a career already defined by meeting\u2014and conquering\u2014challenges wherever he finds them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Air Force veteran\u2019s Computer Science career TAKES OFF Nicholas Timinskas Nicholas Timinskas (CS, \u201909) is a living testament to the power of determination\u2014and the quality of a CSUN education. After a stint in the Air Force and a few years as a general contractor, he decided it was time for a career change. His exposure to advanced technology in the military inclined him toward a technical field, but there was just one catch: he didn\u2019t consider himself especially computer-literate. He had resisted computers for a long time, considering them little more than a necessary evil. As it happens, the very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}