\u201cOn our first day he greeted every one of about 150 students at the doorway, shook hands, introduced himself. When everyone was seated he pointed to us individually and rattled off our names, and said that about 20 per cent of us would be here at the end of the course. He was close \u2013 only 35 graduated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does he remember when his \u2018techie\u2019 side emerged?<\/p>\n
\u201cAh, early on. My parents had a friend who was an insurance salesman and he had a calculator. I was totally engrossed with it,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n
Punch cards, PCs and network protocols<\/h3>\n
A decade on, Solder was creating computer programs in a new high-school subject called Mathematics Enrichment, but without a calculator or other technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe punched holes in cards using paperclips, the decks were then sent to UWA for processing, and the following week we got the print output of our programs. It took a whole week!\u201d<\/p>\n
And if that sounds ludicrous to Generation Insta, imagine doing advanced maths without a calculator. Solder was among the last of the Australians forced to use a slide rule in high school, because, despite the availability of calculators, they were banned in exams.<\/p>\n
Three years later, he graduated with a double major in Computer Programming & Systems Analysis and a job with the most admired tech company in the world: IBM.<\/p>\n
\u201cIBM had a great training program. I was based in their new Perth office but for the first six months I spent alternate months at the training facility in Sydney. They were the early days of mainframes, PCs and Unix machines.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a bit of an introvert but we also learned the soft skills, and I found a passion for the engagement side of technology.\u201d<\/p>\n
After 11 years with IBM and ready for more challenges, he grabbed an opportunity at Cisco Systems, a high growth tech innovator based in Silicon Valley. Cisco (after San Francisco \u2013 hence the \u2018bridge\u2019 brandmark) was one of the first companies to develop routers for multiple network protocols, and in 1995 the company was establishing offices in Australia. Solder quickly became one of their high-achieving Australians.<\/p>\n
![\"Carl](\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CarlSolder-414x420.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\u201cI was their first systems engineer in WA, and I had the job of setting up the Perth \u2018sales office\u2019 \u2013 on the 18th floor of St Martin\u2019s Tower. It had a desk, a chair and a phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the tech guys in Melbourne visited regularly and we worked on systems design, engineering and implementation. Basically everything related to networking support for routers, switches, firewalls and VOIP.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think I was pretty good but I wasn\u2019t special. Cisco had a group of incredibly talented systems engineers in Australia \u2013 they all passed their CCIE no trouble.\u2019<\/p>\n
The CCIE \u2013 Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert \u00ad\u2013 is a notoriously difficult accreditation for those who design, build and implement complex networks. Cisco established the program in 1993, and since then the global IT industry has used it to delineate the top tier of network experts. Less than one per cent of network professionals achieve CCIE, which usually takes two or three years of study, and few pass at their first attempt. Solder passed the CCIE first go and in his first year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first official CCIE lab was given the number 1024, which is 2 to the power of 10, and every one who\u2019s passed the CCIE has been given a number, starting at 1025. \u00a0Mine is 2416.\u201d<\/p>\n
After four years overseeing exponential business growth in WA, he transferred to a technical role based in Singapore. \u201cI was able to spread my wings and travel throughout across Asia, helping large enterprises set up their networks\u201d.<\/p>\n
And then \u2026 the tech bubble burst?<\/h3>\n
\u201cActually the slump of 2000 didn\u2019t really affect us. Cisco was a rare company in Silicon Valley in that it had no debt,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe stock did drop, from $82 to $9 in a year, but Cisco had a good balance sheet and was a market leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Solder\u2019s work therefore continued without a glitch. His work on the Catalyst line of enterprise switches \u2013 the most successful product line in the company\u2019s history \u2013 earned him the honour of Distinguished Engineer, one of the first that Cisco awarded. He\u2019s now been with Cisco for 22 years \u2013 what keeps him inspired?<\/p>\n
\u201cl have an amazing group of technicians and engineers \u2013 we love network challenges and inventing solutions. Cisco has a great work culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
And they are<\/em> in the world hub of high-tech, he reminds me. Take driverless cars, for example.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been testing them here for years \u2013 in my neighbourhood you see lots of cars without anybody steering them. Google is down the road from our house, Apple and Facebook are around the corner …\u00a0 you go to grab coffee and you\u2019re in the midst of people with very iconic logos on their hoodies.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh get a life, you might think, with an eye-roll of the techno-envious. But pop culture\u2019s caricature techie, picking 24\/7 through wires and circuit boards, is outdated.<\/p>\n Cisco has 34 buildings, and Solder usually jogs between buildings for meetings. His out-of-office life is also dynamic: he and his family make the most of the scenery in Mountain View, a San Jose suburb between Santa Cruz Mountains and San Francisco, and his own hobbies aren\u2019t especially sedentary, although they do have that trait of \u2018precision\u2019: Solder is a Tae Kwon Do 4th Dan Black Belt, a long-time surfer, and an action-sports photographer<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I love the combination of working with technology and people,” he explains. \u201cI\u2019m very fortunate to be working with client relationships. We discuss new technologies and our latest inventions, and what it could do for their business.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps he could reveal what\u2019s behind the cloud, what the next-gen of geeks can look forward to?<\/p>\n \u201cSoftware-defined networking, or SDN \u2013 the shift to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Network techs used to spend heaps of time configuring boxes one by one, but now there\u2019s a controller that sits between the tech and the system, driving the architecture. And we\u2019re starting to build AI elements into it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s still early days for AI but that\u2019s the vision.\u201d<\/p>\n Preparing for the future is one reason he believes industry and universities should create partnerships, and why he\u2019s willing to help develop teaching programs at local Bay Area universities.<\/p>\n And what advice would he offer students, particularly those who feel driven for innovation but aren\u2019t sure of their direction?<\/p>\n \u201cIndustry leaders need to connect with universities, to make sure that graduates have the skillsets we need \u2013 which helps us to onboard from those programs.<\/p>\n \u201cFor students, there are so many paths to achieving your goals. Just like a network, there are alternative paths to route data to its destination \u2013 if you hit a road block, take a different path.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Professor Heinz Dreher joined the Western Australian Institute of Technology in 1976 and retired from Curtin in 2013, after a 37-year teaching and research career in information technology systems.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Computer networking expert Carl Solder is not your typical geek. He thrives on working with both technology and people; and, in Perth and Silicon Valley, he\u2019s been living the dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4182,"featured_media":7068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":1,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-7067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"Innovation Central Perth","content":" Perth is one of 10 cities in the global network of Cisco innovation centres<\/a>. Established in 2017 with Curtin University, Woodside Energy and Data61, Innovation Central Perth<\/a> is a collaborative hub for developing technology solutions using the newest network platforms.<\/p>\n This year, a Curtin University executive team visited Cisco\u2019s San Jose campus to explore the next steps in the 10-year relationship between the two organisations. At the event, the team unexpectedly met Carl Solder, a Curtin University alumnus whose journey from suburban Perth to Silicon Valley had been an untold story.<\/p>\n","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"Computing","qualification":"Bachelor of Computing","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/study\/offering\/course-ug-bachelor-of-computing--b-comp\/","description":"","faculty":"Science and Engineering"}],"credits":{"author":{"title":"Karen Green","url":"#","target":""},"photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"post_components":false},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Autonomous-car-CarlSolder.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Zoe","last_name":"Taylor","display_name":"Zoe Taylor"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 07:37:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7067"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=7067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Champion](\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/KellySlater-CarlSolderProfile-792x420.jpg\")