Pieter van Zee has worked at the intersection of business strategy, system architecture, and software development for most of his career. He is a Distinguished Technologist at HP Inc., with a focus on software strategy and products for the PageWide Industrial printing press division. 鈥淥SU鈥檚 Master鈥檚 degree program in Computer Science offered a desirable mix of innovative research in user-centered software design along with solid technical fundamentals,鈥 van Zee said.
He added that he has used those skills extensively in his 28-year career at HP. During that time, he has been co-founder or a principal contributor to six in-house startup product lines, received 12 patents, and worked directly on many customer deals. 鈥淪olving hard problems creatively for customers is part of the fun of being an engineer,鈥 he added. HP鈥檚 digital presses print at more than 8 feet per second in rich color and are transforming traditional industrial printing while reducing paper waste and the use of toxic ingredients.
鈥淚t鈥檚 exciting to make it possible for book sellers to print and ship a book within hours of when it was ordered and to eliminate the concept of 鈥渙ut of print鈥 or the need to warehouse books,鈥 van Zee said. Throughout his working years, van Zee said he is most proud of his work on the HP Photo Center. 鈥淧hoto Center made it amazingly easy for people to create beautiful photo products like collages, photobooks, posters and cards.鈥
HP鈥檚 award-winning system brought nextgeneration photo products to thousands of retail stores worldwide. As Chief Technologist for the division, he was deeply involved in the design and development of the innovative kiosk software that could create complete photobook designs with attractive layouts in seconds with a single button press and then let the user customize them easily. Pieter enjoys participating on the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Industrial Advisory Board, as well as student recruiting and mentoring of senior Capstone projects.