From IT intern to IT pro

As a high school student at Vallivue High School in Caldwell, Idaho, in the fall of 1989, Dan Puga began working as an intern at Hewlett-Packard Co. Later, when he went off to college at California State University in Chico, Calif., he returned to HP for three summer internships until receiving his computer science degree in 1994.

By then, HP was in his blood.

Puga's interest in technology was aided by a high school teacher who taught him basic programming. He joined HP after college, working as a software test engineer, responsible for writing tests to exercise the firmware in hard drives. Today, Puga is a research and development director at HP in Boise, Idaho, managing a research and development laboratory for enterprise software in the imaging and printing group.

Since joining the company after his internships, Puga has had a long list of jobs, with each one giving him new experiences and lessons. In a way, it's like his internships at HP have never stopped.