Justin Castle ’97 spent just two years in San Jose, but working for California-based Covad helped him build a management career in the high-tech industry.
Castle graduated from Wabash and was hired by Bob Knowling ’77 into Covad’s Denver office. The former Little Giant football player and Frankfort, Indiana native moved to Denver, Omaha, Atlanta, and Chicago before settling with his wife in California. He realized he had to go to the company’s home base for his career to take off.
Ironically, he’s back in Indiana now. In November, the company created a supervisory position for him while he weighs options of continuing with Covad or seeking other career options.
Castle was director of network planning and capacity when he left his San Jose job in November. He managed 32 people for Covad, which was the first company to commercially deploy DSL Internet services.
"I took a liberal arts approach in education and a method of thinking into an environment with people who are very methodical and mathematical in their thinking," Castle says. "It has been a very good mix in terms of managing my career and finding very interesting things to get involved with. I learned a lot about the things people use every day even though they don’t know what’s behind them. It’s been an interesting way to get myself oriented to this industry. And, it’s never boring."