Sometimes members of a family excel in the same craft. Wolfgang Mozart and his sister Fanny were both talented musicians. Another brother and sister who are both successful in the same profession are Tom and Marilyn Rochat, members of the Computer Science Associates, an advisory council for the Computer Science and Engineering Department. Both are software engineers, Marilyn at Medtronic and Tom at General Dynamics, and both are alumni of Computer Science and Engineering graduate programs.

Tom and Marilyn grew up in Saint Louis Park, the children of a public school music teacher. They both majored in mathematics as undergraduates and then taught in the public school system, but their paths from schoolteacher to software engineer were very different.

Marilyn Rochat majored in mathematics, German, and secondary education at Gustavus Adolphus College. After graduation she taught seventh and eighth grade mathematics in Roseville for three and a half years before going to Ghana for the Peace Corps. There she taught mathematics for three years. Most people join the Peace Corps for a two-year assignment, so her family began to wonder whether she would ever return to Minnesota. To their relief she did return after three years. During the next five years she worked as a recruiter for the Peace Corps in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

After working four years recruiting for the Peace Corps, Marilyn started working halftime at Control Data when Tom told her of an opening in his group. After a year, she resigned from the Peace Corps to work fulltime in the computer industry, and at the same time she started taking graduate courses in computer science because she felt a need to further her education in this area. After six years of taking courses, mostly through UNITE, the program at the University that provides distance education for professionals, she completed a Master of Science in Computer Science.

The year before completing the master's degree, Marilyn changed employers, joining the Arrythmia Management Group at Medtronic in product development. There she develops software for an instrument called a programmer that communicates with a defibrillator, pacemaker, or other implanted cardiac device. When a patient with a defibrillator visits a clinic, a doctor or nurse places the magnetic wand of the programmer over the defibrillator. Data collected by the defibrillator, such as arrythmias that occurred, therapies it provided, and information on the battery and leads is collected in the programmer. In addition to examining the data, the clinician can also adjust the defibrillator settings.

Tom Rochat went to the University of Minnesota as an undergraduate, majoring in mathematics and completing preparation to be an elementary school teacher. After two years of teaching, he decided he would prefer to teach at a junior college, and so he returned to the University to get a masters degree in mathematics. There he was advised to also get a minor in computer science. While taking computer science courses, he decided he wanted to be a software engineer. Later, in the 90's, Tom earned a MCIS degree from the Computer Science and Engineering Department.

After completing the master's degree in mathematics, he joined Control Data. His group at Control Data is now part of General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems. They provide systems for the military including both software and hardware.

Since his time at Control Data, Tom has been involved with high performance computing, a very challenging and exciting field. Many of the applications he works on require special-purpose hardware, so he is involved in hardware design as well as the design of software for very interesting hybrid architectures that have involved parallel processors and different types of interconnections between the processors.

Tom became involved with the Computer Science Associates because the group he was part of at Control Data was a member. He wanted to be involved with the University so when the representative from his group to the CSA wanted to step down, Tom took the position. Tom has worked with members of the Department on research. This included company funded research in the Digital Multimedia Research Center, run by David Du and work with Professors Pen Yew and David Lilja on compilers. Tom was the Chair of CSA from 1996 to 1999.

Marilyn got involved with the CSA when Tom was an assistant to the Chair. He mentioned that Medtronic did not have a representative on the CSA and suggested she attend. After asking around her company Marilyn started attending CSA meetings as Medtronic's representative.

Alumni Marilyn and Tom Rochat have contributed to their companies through their work as software engineers and to the CS&E Department through their involvement with the Computer Science Associates.

-Bobbie Othmer