Mark Griffey
Zhi “Mark” Yang (GEN’00, WMP’21) is the Managing Partner of SSoT Technologies Limited, a company that provides comprehensive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) solutions for the Electronics Specialty Gases (ESG) industry. Yang is also the co-founder of the Penn Engineering Alumni Club of China, who will be hosting their annual event on March 15 in Shanghai, China. In this Q&A, Yang discusses a memorable professor who pushed him to his limit, his long commute to Penn Engineering, and the elation of getting his first job after graduation.
Tell us about what brought you to Penn Engineering.
My first job after college was to develop a network monitoring system for Bell Communications Research (Bellcore). My boss was a Penn Engineering alum, and that was when I first learned about the School. At the time, Penn Engineering and Columbia were the only two schools offering graduate programs in Telecommunications and Networking, but I never hesitated in choosing Penn.
What was your most memorable moment at Penn?
My most memorable moment was in October 2000, right before I completed my master’s degree. I was recruited by a networking startup company and given a generous sign-on bonus and stock options. I was so thrilled. Only many years later would I realize that was the peak of the internet bubble. After the bubble burst in 2001, the telecommunication industry was never quite able to recover.
Which professor had the greatest impact on you and why?
I took Stochastic Processes with Santosh Venkatesh and he had the greatest
impact on me. Dr. Venkatesh is one of the sharpest professors I have ever met, and his
lectures were always very detailed and clear, but his exams were extremely difficult. I barely got more than half of the exam problems correct even with the tremendous amounts of time I spent preparing for the exams. But this was the course where I learned the most, and I later realized that you learn the most when you are challenged and pushed to your limit.
What is a fun fact about you?
I was commuting from my work in Piscataway, New Jersey to Penn two or three times
a week for my graduate program at Penn Engineering, and I must have travelled
enough miles to circle the globe by the time I completed my program!
What inspires you to give to Penn?
I run an engineering company, and Penn Engineering has given me the solid engineering
training to understand, appreciate and tackle the engineering problems I face every day. This is what inspires me to give back.