Wonder What It's Like to Work at Google?

As part of a "Where Are They Now?" series in Patch, we are featuring the latest news from your neighbors in town. If you know someone with an interesting story to share, let us know.

Daniel Nash considers himself a Midwestern man. "I just love the Midwest," said the native, who attended University of Wisconsin and stayed in Madison, WI, for six years after he graduated.

Which makes it all the more peculiar that he ended up about 2,000 miles away in San Bruno, CA.

But it was for a good reason: Google.

Earlier:

Nash recently worked with Google's YouTube Operations Team as part of a 10-week internship through University of Michigan. The 30-year-old MBA student had previously worked at Epic Systems, a software company in Wisconsin that focuses on hospital and health care integration.

"About a year and a half ago, I decided to make the jump into [the] broad, social focus arena of technology," said the University of Wisconsin graduate. "So I decided to pursue my MBA degree."

At Google

Nash's time at Google focused on the user operations side of YouTube, determining the challenges and the benefits of the "upload" function on the site.

"I was intended to take the valuation of different site operations and align with the operations to make tools that can tackle issues," said Nash.

While focused on one part of Google's giant tentacles, Nash said that the most remarkable aspect of the work was the "wide variety of areas of interest [that] impact the social space."

And then, of course, there's the people too. "The biggest thing that defines people here is large intellectual curiosity," said Nash. "Every time I went to someone asking for help, they wanted to problem-solve."

Back at Home

The alumnus plans to take his time making his way back to the Midwest. "I want to work in high-tech industries on the West Coast for a while, but hope to settle back in the Chicagoland area."

Nash credits his upbringing with providing the passion to pursue technology in new areas, such as the social and mobile fields.

"You see people [in the North Shore] able to pursue what they’re passionate about and reach success," he said. "This allowed me to understand that while not following [a] standard path, I could follow the things I want to do and end up at a place I want to live back in Chicago."

For now, he will just have to wait for one of his favorite gyro sandwiches from in Wilmette.