Originally born in Yokohama, Japan, Masaru may be one of the few Japanese students who has decided to stay permanently in the U.S. to advance his career after graduation. Masaru currently works at Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Headquarters in Northern Kentucky as a robotics engineering specialist for the Toyota Partner Robot group.
His current responsibilities at Toyota include Partner Robot groups event activities and robotics research. He specializes in system optimization, security, virtualization, and network engineering.
Prior to moving to Toyota, Masaru worked for HP, Agilent technologies and Intel Corporation in Colorado Springs, CO as a system and security administrator. He also served as an adjunct associate professor at Colorado Technical University and National American University responsible for their Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer tracks.
"Having worked in the I.T. industry for the last 10 years, I saw layoffs, outsourcing, early retirements and company split. It was time for a change. An M.S. degree in Telecommunications from CU-Boulder certainly helped me to obtain a better opportunity and competitive edges in the job market.", says Masaru.
After seriously considering to pursue a Ph.D. in robotics system security based on artificial intelligence, Masaru decided to go for an MBA at one of the leading business schools in the U.S. With the ITP and MBA degrees, Masaru plans on leading Toyota's Partner Robot group to further enable co-existence between humans and robots in the near future.
His previous I.T. certifications include Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), MCSE + Internet, Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), Cisco Certified Network Associate, CompTIA Linux+ and Network+. He was one of the first 1,000 MCSEs in the world at the age of 24. His presentation, "Windows Interoperability with UNIX/Linux using SAMBA" was widely appreciated by the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology Users group members in August, 2002 to fully utilize heterogeneous system environments.
Masaru encourages other international students:
"If you do not give up and keep learning, you can succeed in the U.S. I am the living proof of that. The ITP can certainly be part of your learning process, and you won't regret it."
Education
M.S., Telecommunications (2001), University of Colorado at Boulder
B.S., Computer Science (1997), University of Colorado at Boulder
B.S., International Business with marketing emphasis (1997), University of Colorado at Boulder