Hartland High School Grad Now is Tech Globetrotter

John Giffin's love of computers began early as he tinkered with how to program as a child on his parents' Apple IIe.

The 1996 Hartland High School graduate's passion for technology sparked what's become a successful career that's taken him across the globe as a solutions architect for StreamBase, which builds trading systems to analyze and act on real time data for banks and hedge funds.

John, 33, earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He met his wife, Monica, while he was in college. The two now live in Massachusetts and have a 4-year-old son.

An interest in theater, skiing

Originally from Chicago, John first attended Hartland High School as a sophomore, finding the drama club as a good way to adjust to his new school and make new friends, performing in Sherlock Holmes, Meet Me in St. Louis, and Fame. His interests also led him to be active in quiz bowl and the French and German clubs.

John's love of theater also helped him "stay sane" in college where he also minored in theater arts, becoming a member of MIT’s Shakespeare Ensemble.

Another hobby he's honed has been skiing. Although he first tried skiing at 14, he didn’t get into it seriously until after he and Monica began to date in college.

John describes his wife as a “very serious skier” who competed in cross country skiing in high school at a Junior Olympics level. It was Monica’s interest in skiing which had lead her to a crossroads of sorts: train for the Olympics at Dartmouth or focus on a career and attend MIT. John said that earlier on in their relationship, Monica helped him improve his skiing skills.

“She worked on my skills and got me doing more interesting stuff (such as) getting off of the trails and into the glades, powder, and steep stuff.”

World traveller

John’s work for StreamBase in which he consult with clients on the implementation of the company’s software has taken him to a wide variety of cities in the U.S. and abroad. He described Madrid, Spain, as having a warm climate and a cultural with remarkably different work values than here in the U.S.

“They value their free time in a way that is very different from the United States,” John said. “They all get to work by 8 a.m. at the latest, but they don’t leave until 7 p.m. They take an hour each for their lunch breaks and coffee breaks.”

John also recounted his visit to Bangalore, India. He described the effects of Bangalore’s rapidly growing middle class.

“(There were) top-notch amenities in some areas, but then right next door would be an utter slum where women would be getting wash water out of storm drains, or people were living in makeshift lean-tos between piles of refuge and torn down buildings.

"You’d see whole families taking a scooter to work. You’d see mom, dad, and three kids riding on a single scooter.”

Recalling his trip to England, John compared London with different cities here in the U.S.

“It’s bigger than Boston, but has a very similar character and a similar style of interaction between people. Still has that sense of being a lot of neighborhoods instead of being the big twenty-first century city, like you get when you go to New York.”

He has also encountered differences in sensibilities and business practices during visits to different clients around the United States.

“What’s considered rude to do in one place is considered rude not to do in another," he said. "In Stanford, if you’re doing something wrong or something that they don’t like, they will smile at you and decide that you’re not worth dealing with but they won’t tell you. The polite thing to do there is to courteously work around what somebody is doing wrong. But if I did that in Manhattan, and somebody found out about it they would ask, ‘why didn’t you tell me that I was being boneheaded?’”