2001 Information Studies alumna, Gina Minks (Rosenthal), has migrated her way through the technology industry over the past fourteen years–from interning at the Florida State University Career Center to landing a job at Dell— her experience and expertise allows her to adapt to the ever-changing technological realm.

Minks transferred to Florida State University from Okaloosa Walton Community College, now known as Northwest Florida State College, in 1999 with an AS in Electronic Engineering Technology. Her studies with electronic circuits leveraged the rapid technological advancements of the late 90s and early 00s. Upon learning the framework and fundamentals of network service providers from an independent project, Gina developed a passion for the World Wide Web.

“I became more interested in how the Internet worked to connect people, not just the machines that were connecting the Internet,” Minks explains.

Formerly known as the “Information Studies program in the College of Library Science” at Florida State University, Minks’s baccalaureate work is the modern equivalent of the Information Technology program in the School of Information.

“I joke that the [Information Studies] program was the world’s first big data degree. We learned to find out how users search for information, and how to build systems that match users’s information needs,” Gina says.

During her undergraduate studies at Florida State, Minks founded the American Indian Student Union (AISU) to inform the FSU community about Native American culture and offer academic and social support for Native American students.

Her leadership initiative earned her the title of “FSU College of Communication’s Humanitarian of the Year” in 2001.

Gina’s first internship at the Florida State University Career Center exposed her to s, the fundamental operating system on which the early Internet was built. In addition to maintaining the labs, Minks built a webpage to allow students to access the database of employers attending Career Fairs onto the Career Center website.  Her knowledge of the UNIX server was a skill in demand by EMC Corporation. The computer data storage company hired Gina Minks in June 2001 as a Technical Instructor and Developer, where she taught the company’s personnel how to connect UNIX systems to storage arrays.

About a year later, Minks worked for the Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory as a UNIX Systems Administrator, working with Solaris and RedHat operating systems. She became the Lead Linux System Administrator in October 2004 for Parexel, a pharmaceutical company based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and implemented and managed the “Build and Release” process for four core products by June 2006.

In September 2006, Gina returned to the EMC Corporation as a Senior Technical Education Specialist and developed technical training in support of the Proven Professional Curriculum. While working, she earned her Master of Science in Instructional Systems from online coursework through Florida State University and graduated with a 4.0 GPA.

“We learned to analyze systems for gaps and suggest resolutions for closing the gaps,” Minks describes.

In January 2010, Gina made her debut within social media management as Senior Program Manager of Social Media at the EMC Corporation. She developed overarching social media policies for the EMC Proven Professional certification program and later, became responsible for using social platforms to build internal and external storage community for Dell Storage in February 2011.

“I used social media to bring users, analysts, and internal Dell people together online and in person to discuss the different products,” Gina said.

Currently, Gina Minks (Rosenthal) is a Product Marketing Manager for AppAssure, one of Dell’s core backup and recovery products. She creates messaging, designs core product content, and supports sales and customers for AppAssure. Minks is required to know Dell products from a technical standpoint, understand the current state of the technological industry, and communicate the correlation of the products within the industry to customers and employees.

“For me, it is the perfect marriage of technical skills and communication skills,” Gina adds.

Outside of work, Minks likes learning about new technologies and is independently experimenting with Jekyll and GitHub for her personal WordPress blog. She loves to experience live music and is happy to be living in the live music capital of the world, Austin, Texas.

“I’m a strong believer in the fact that everything is connected. The Internet, and social media, help us connect even further, if we use it correctly. Think big, think different, connect all. If we can do that, I believe we can change the world,” she explains.

Take a look at Gina’s LinkedIn here.