2011 Florida State University Information Technology graduate, Todd Lahtinen, is coalescing his passions of finance and technology through his own personal audio series, Fin-ology, with brother Kyre Lahtinen, and colleague, Stephan Shipe, as a hobby in conjunction with his job. Todd and his cohosts came up with the concept from their studies and and common interests, as Kyre and Stephan shared in experience with FSU’s Ph.D in Finance program. The installments feature open-ended discussions about financial and technological feats and downfalls within the cycle of the modern market–and a couple casual conversations in between. The inspiration for the podcast comes from Lahtinen’s academic crossroad at Florida State University, when the sophomore decided to concentrate his studies on IT instead of majoring in Finance. With his brother and Stephan’s extensive knowledge in the field of finance and Todd’s enjoyment of technology, a joint adventure into the world of podcasting was an exciting accomplishment for everyone involved.
Prior to attending Florida State University, Todd began his education at Tallahassee Community College in 2007. Once enrolled in the College of Communication & Information (CCI at FSU) in 2010, Lahtinen worked as an Academic Publications Assistant within the IT curriculum at the university, where he inputted changes into documents, checked documents for accuracy, and proofed web pages for content and HTML errors. A year later, Todd advanced internally within the institution and became a Web Application Developer. His studies were in alignment with his employment, and Lahtinen became skilled in Ubuntu Linux servers, LAMP stacks, WordPress and PHP. Todd gained college credit as a Mobile Application Development Intern at Florida State the summer before graduation.
“I took several tracks that gave me a solid base in systems administration, networking, security, databases, and web development. I enjoyed development the most and chose to pursue a career in that vertical after I graduated,” he explains.
After commencement, Todd worked as a Web/Mobile Application Developer for a small web development shop in August 2011. Four months later, the firm closed its doors and left Lahtinen without a job. He was confident in the job search ahead because of his diverse skill set in IT, and found employment at AccentHealth in Tampa, Florida– only 10 days after being laid-off.
“My degree made me a very well rounded candidate. Within 6 months AccentHealth added software development projects to my list of responsibilities,” Todd said.
After three years in Tampa, Lahtinen and his wife decided to relocate to live closer to family. In December 2014, Todd was hired at iMobile 3 in Jacksonville, Florida and earned the occupation of Software Engineer for iOS application development.
“I have always had a fascination with Apple products. I have been doing iOS development on the side ever since my mobile application internship opportunity I had while attending FSU– The Habitat Tracker Project run by CCI’s Dr. Paul Marty,” he reminisces.
Lahtinen has also created his own mobile application, ToddClock, designed to let individuals quickly share a formatted timestamp. The application is available for Apple devices.
Take a look at Todd’s LinkedIn here and listen to the Fin-ology series here.