Engineering A Turnaround

After losing his job in Silicon Valley, Tufts graduate Linc Jepson headed to Russia to start a company and found himself in the middle of a growing technology hotbed.

Zelenograd, Russia [08.25.04] While the quaint streets of Zelenograd may be a long way from Silicon Valley, the two regions aren’t that far apart, at least when it comes to technology. Just ask Linc Jepson. After the Tufts graduate lost his job in California, he moved to Zelenograd to start his own company, and now finds himself in the middle of a growing technology hotbed not too different from his former home.

“I always wanted to work abroad before I got married and settled down,” Jepson – who earned degrees in electrical engineering and international relations at Tufts – told the Electronic Engineering Times. “I’m merging [the expertise from my] two degrees and am doing engineering work abroad. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.”

Though an ocean away from his old life, Russia has been close to Jepson’s heart for awhile. Since high school, the Tufts graduate has been studying the Russian language.

“I thought it was so exotic,” he told the Times, describing his first high school Russian course. “I jumped at the chance [to study it] and I was hooked.”

En route to Russia, Jepson resumed his studies at a linguistic university in Minsk, Belarus. Eight months later, he arrived in Zelenograd – a growing city just outside Moscow – and a year later he set up his new company 74ze, an engineering outsourcing firm that now has offices in four cities around the world.

“[Jepson said] it’s a peaceful place with trolley buses, stories, theaters and gyms,” reported the Times. Zelenograd’s name translates to “green city” and it’s covered by large groves of trees.

And increasingly, it’s becoming a home to high-tech companies, big and small.

“Recently, Jepson said, a number of homegrown engineering operations have sprung up in the area, and companies such as Motorola and Samsung have set down roots,” reported the Times. “Intel has a large design center not far away, in Moscow, as does Cadence Design Systems, Jepson noted.”

Zelenograd, by many accounts, is on the rise.

“It would be premature to compare it to Bangalore [In India],” Jepson told the Times, “but it’s kind of a technology hotbed.”

And the Tufts graduate and his colleagues are in the thick of it, as their growing engineering outsourcing firm now handles jobs from around the world.

Jepson hasn’t ruled out a return to the States, but he has no immediate plans to go back.

“I don’t know if I would call it permanent,” he told the Times. “But for right now, it’s what I’m doing and I’m loving it.”