Bobby Krupczak describes himself as a “semi-retired stay-at-home dad.” He shuttles his three children—12-year-old Brandon, 10-year-old Matthew and 6-year-old Katie—to and from school, swim lessons and soccer practice.  He plays video games and dolls with them and admits without embarrassment that all three kids tell him he still has a lot to learn about such things.

Krupczak, who earned both a master’s degree (1993) and a Ph.D. (1997) in computer science from Tech, clearly enjoys his role. But it’s far from the only one he’s played.

While in graduate school together, Krupczak and his wife, Cheryl (M.S. in computer science, 1992), started a successful shrink-wrap software company in the spare bedroom of their apartment. As Empire Technologies, they developed network, system and application management software for seven years before selling the company to Concord Communications, a management software company where both Krupczaks stayed on as vice-presidents. In 2003, they left Concord to found a new system- and application-management technology company called the Krupczak Organization.

Through it all, Krupczak has made a point of keeping up with former professors and classmates. He so values the continuing connection that he even chairs the Computing Alumni Council, a group of 10 or so computing alumni (including a vice chair, secretary, treasurer and members-at-large) who meet once a month at his house in suburban Atlanta.

“During my time here, I most valued the interaction with faculty, staff, grad students and undergrads, and the incredible environment that the College provides,” he says. “I’d really love to see that continue for alumni after graduation.”
As part of that effort, the College of Computing has established the Computing Alumni Association (CAA), which is open to anyone who studied at the College of Computing or its predecessor, the School of Information and Computer Science. The extroverted Krupczak is a natural for the association, but he says it hasn’t been easy to build up the membership.

“I enjoy meeting new and interesting people,” he says. “But computer people tend to be more introverted, so it can be difficult to get them to participate in groups like this. Most computing grads probably don’t even know the association exists. But CoC alumni are interesting, smart and accomplished people, and it’s exciting to get to meet and know them.”

The CAA was formed in August 2005 to create and foster an alumni community as well as to support the continued excellence of the College. It also was established as an affinity group of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, which allowed the CAA to create a challenge grant program to raise funds.

To build on the social opportunities and networking benefits that go along with membership, CAA wants to facilitate alumni-to-alumni mentorships and alumni-to-student mentorships. But one of the biggest benefits of an active alumni association is that it supports and enhances the College itself.

“Former Dean (Peter) Freeman used to tell a story about his own degree from a little, unknown school called Carnegie Tech,” Krupczak says. “Through the hard work of the institution and the alumni, the school is now Carnegie Mellon, and Dean Freeman's degree has been retroactively enhanced by that work.”

Krupczak says he sees the same thing happening with Georgia Tech and the College of Computing. Since he graduated in 1997, the College has moved from being ranked 18th in the country in CS graduate programs to a No. 8 ranking in 2008, according to U.S. News & World Report. Krupczak wants to see his alma mater move right up to No. 1.

“My degree is now from a top-tier computer science program—pretty neat trick!” he says. “And I'm so sick of always hearing ‘MIT this and MIT that.’ Instead, I'd like to hear ‘Georgia Tech this and Georgia Tech that.’”

And Krupczak is pretty sure that soon —through the hard work of the institution and the alumni—he will.

To get more information about or to join the Computing Alumni Association, please visit the CAA website at http://alumni.cc.gatech.edu.