Master Inventor from Childhood
When Matt Trevathan '98 received his first IBM PC Junior at age 9 or 10, he promptly took it apart and put it back together again. “I needed to see how it worked,” he said. He was soon programming and by age 14 or 15, building his own PCs.
Any wonder that this 1998 Mercer computer science graduate holds the title of Master Inventor and Senior Solutions Architect at IBM? Trevathan is a thought leader in cloud computing and the next generation (4G) of wireless technology. He already holds 15-20 patents and has almost 100 pending. But if his mind is in the ‘clouds,’ his feet are firmly on the ground.
Sure, he sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night to pursue a fresh idea, and will forget his work badge in absent-minded professor fashion, but he’s no mad scientist in a basement laboratory. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, Bobby, and three daughters whom he considers his proudest accomplishment. He plays with his kids, teaches Sunday School, serves as a judge for Georgia science fairs and coaches 3- and 4-year-old girls in soccer. “It takes amazing rigor to instruct 4-year-olds, to set goals and deal with the meltdowns, but from a managerial point of view, it’s great experience,” he said.
For Trevathan, inventing is a natural part of his life. It’s about being inquisitive and problem-solving — whether the problem is how to keep your child from straying too far at the park (he invented a wireless leash) or designing the technology grids and systems that allow text messages to be sent and received instantaneously. “Inventors rarely find something entirely new,” he said. “What they do is take existing things and add to them, combine them in different ways, find new applications and improve them.”
Trevathan grew up in Brunswick, Ga., with his mom, a nurse, and dad, a Navy aviator. “I always loved Legos and building things. I built a lot of model rockets as a kid, and anything electrical fascinated me,” he said. His grandmother encouraged his interest in science. He was an International Science and Engineering Fair Finalist twice in high school for his work with magneto-hydrodynamics, and the state winner at the 1993 National Science and Humanities Symposium.
Trevathan considered MIT for college, but his older brother was at Mercer, so he visited there as well. He chose Mercer believing it would give him a well-rounded education. Starting out as an electrical engineering major, he soon found his computer science classes to be more hands-on. “The first day of a programming class, we were building things and that was very gratifying, so I switched majors,” he said.
He was able to major in computer science as part of a liberal arts degree. While he took lots of math and physics, he also remembers fondly his courses in English, great books, music appreciation, Western civilization and U.S. History. “Mercer was a great choice. To have that breadth of education has been invaluable,” Trevathan said. “It’s what allows me to bridge the gap between technology and business. I can lay out the framework for a new solution to a client in everyday language, then turn around and tell my team ‘this is how we’re going to do it,’ using technical terms.”
Besides serving as president of the local chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery in college, he worked as a resident assistant and ran a computer network on his hall before anyone else on the campus was interconnected. He was also a member of the Baptist Student Union and played flag football for fun. “Mercer was, overall, a good college experience,” he noted.
IBM called Trevathan with a job offer after he graduated in 1998 — and he jumped at it. “It was the middle of the Internet boom and IBM was on the cutting edge of inventing new technology. The work environment was very start-up-like,” he said. “IBM has been in the innovation business for years, and leads the world in patent inventions.” Trevathan lost no time making his contribution. Asked to come up with a few ideas the first month, “I submitted about 75 invention ideas, 35 looked promising and about 20 went to the patent office,” he said. His ratio of ideas to patent applications is even better today.
Trevathan’s work focuses on the telecommunications industry and the technology that allows complex computing devices to communicate with each other. He works often in the realm of cloud computing — taking technology applications off the desktop and onto the Internet so that someone can share video, send e-mail or retrieve work files from a computer at work using a mobile device.
One of his first inventions was for a Myers-Briggs Personality Engine, which would help retailers learn your personality as you shop so they could market to you more effectively. “If you buy a lot of sporting goods, they might offer you game tickets, for instance. If you’re detail-oriented, they’d describe the products differently,” he said.
At present, he’s working on location-based services and the contextual building blocks needed for telecommunications. “With location-based services provided by your wireless carrier and cell-tower triangulation, you could find the nearest gas station or the best restaurant to meet a friend for lunch using your mobile device,” he said.
When not working on the next generation of mobile technology, Trevathan’s mind often turns to everyday problems. He has a patent pending for system to allow him to selectively block calls when he’s in a meeting. Those on a ‘white’ list, like his wife, can override the block with an emergency code and ring through. Those on a ‘gray’ list can text a message. The ‘black’ list automatically goes to voice mail.
Trevathan has won many awards for his inventions, including IBM’s Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2008 for helping to integrate Google’s cloud-based applications into Sprint’s 4G portal.
Knowing that ideas can come at any time, he keeps a notebook handy and a running list of ideas on his mobile. “Being an inventor is like being a writer. If you like an idea, you turn it into a project. The initial thought is the hardest part. After that it’s looking at where things stand and taking the next logical step. When stuck, you walk away. Usually a solution will present itself when you’re not thinking about it,” he said.
Saldivia-Jones Photography