On any given workday, you’ll likely spot Teddy Spivey, data center IT analyst at Duke University, wearing his signature North Carolina Central University (NCCU) Eagles apparel, as he navigates the server racks.
“I love my NCCU, what can I say,” Spivey said. “I show my Eagle Pride everywhere I go.”
An NCCU alumnus, Spivey plays an instrumental role in NCShare, a statewide collaborative data center initiative that supports research and innovation across North Carolina’s higher education institutions, with his alma mater as a founding partner. NCShare provides high-performance computing resources for data-intensive projects.
As a data center analyst, Spivey is responsible for installing and maintaining the initiative’s computing infrastructure, which includes cutting-edge graphics processing units (GPU).
“I’m basically the guy who brings the devices in, puts them in the rack and makes sure everything works,” he said. “Their computational speed is out of this world.”
Some GPU systems are so large that the team had to physically modify server racks to accommodate them. Power demands also present challenges.
“They’re also very power hungry,” said Spivey. “We had to carefully calculate where to place them to ensure they get the power they need without overloading the system and or causing outages.”
A Pathway to Purpose
Spivey’s road to this role wasn’t traditional. He began college as an engineering major at North Carolina A&T State University but found the coursework overwhelming. After taking time away from school, he enrolled at NCCU, unsure of his path but drawn to the School of Business' computer information systems program. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2008.
It was at NCCU that Spivey met Cameron Seay, Ph.D., a professor who pioneered a mainframe curriculum that opened doors for many students in IT. Thanks to Seay’s mentorship and connections, Spivey landed a mainframe analyst role at Bank of America before he crossed the graduation stage.
Spivey spent five years at the bank, alongside a number of NCCU alumni, refining his technical skills. After company restructuring, he transitioned to Duke, where he worked in the Operations Center for eight years, monitoring critical systems and responding to incidents in real time.
Now in his current role, Spivey finds deeper meaning in the mission.
“Knowing that my work supports faculty and students, whether they’re studying the universe through a NASA telescope or researching cancer treatments, makes me feel fulfilled,” he said. “Even more when I know NCCU students are part of it.”