Purdue Profiles: Mathew Trampski

Mathew Trampski, director of partnerships and analytics in the Office of Corporate and Global Partnerships and director of information technology for the Technical Assistance Program. (Purdue University photo/Mark Simons) Download image

Mathew Trampski has two business cards: one for his role as director of partnerships and analytics in the Office of Corporate and Global Partnerships, and one for his role as director of information technology for the Technical Assistance Program.

A self-proclaimed “Hoosier by birth, but Boilermaker by the grace of God,” Trampski studied computer technology at Purdue, then spent 10 years in Washington, D.C., working as a government contractor for the Department of Defense and intelligence community for a number of contracting companies including Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. He came back to Purdue in 2013 and now, in addition to his IT role, helps establish university corporate partnerships.

What do you do on an average day?

There really is no average day. For example, this week I will have meetings with three very different companies: a U.S. automaker, a large tech and engineering services company, and an animal health company. In addition to that, I’ll have IT meetings with staff and talk about how things are going for the people that we support on the technology side. There is a wide variety of activity.

What do the University’s corporate partnerships add? Who do they benefit and how?

One of our primary focuses is to bring the university industry-sponsored research. The partnerships are mutually beneficial, so the intent of them is to add value for our industry partners and to continue the academic mission of the University. Our partnerships are intended to be multifaceted so that many areas of the partner company and the University benefit.  On the University side, our faculty, schools, and departments will gain additional exposure to working with industry partners and our goal is to streamline the process for those engagements.

What are some of Purdue’s larger goals for these corporate partnerships?

We are striving for meaningful, strategic corporate partnerships where our industry partners and the university agree on a joint strategic vision. Our efforts focus on establishing and facilitating large-scale comprehensive partnerships.  In addition to our primary focus on industry-sponsored research, we want to ensure our partners are engaging our university in a number of ways.  For example, recruiting our students; we’d like to be a primary source for talent acquisition both during their studies and after graduation. To summarize, we want to build multifaceted, mutually beneficial relationships between the University and industry partners that makes it easy for the university to engage with industry and attractive for industry to interact with our campus community.

What is the Technical Assistance Program and what is your role in it?

For the past 30 years, the Technical Assistance Program has provided assistance to businesses in Indiana in industries like manufacturing and health care. TAP IT is an embedded IT group that primarily supports the Technical Assistance Program, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and the Purdue Healthcare Advisors. The group provides systems administration, application development, information systems and analytics support. The group, on occasion, provides support and IT project work to other departments on campus. As IT director, my responsibilities include providing overall direction for the IT operations and planning, budgetary responsibility, staffing and operations management oversight. 

How did you know that you wanted to become involved in IT?

As a young person, I didn’t have a computer growing up in my home. It wasn’t something my family was interested in, but I really wanted one. So to convince my parents to purchase me a computer, I decided to study computer technology at Purdue.  I always tell people that’s why I went into IT, but it’s only partially true. I recognized early on that IT careers offer a lot of opportunity and stability. IT appeals to me in that there’s an aspect of it that keeps you problem solving and delivering a needed service to customers. If at the end of the day, you find a solution and fix a problem, that’s an instant reward. Or if you’re designing a system that improves people’s daily business or lives, that’s a reward.

What would you say is your favorite part of the job?

My favorite part of the job is variety. I get to continue working in the IT space with an outstanding staff and I get to engage industry and campus on a large scale. I’m privileged to be able to sit in on research presentations that our faculty give to companies. The amount of brainpower and the science that I get to see is fascinating, so I learn something new constantly. It’s a lot of fun to have the opportunity to get to see so many aspects of what’s going on at the University. 

Writer: Kelsey Schnieders, kschnied@purdue.edu