THON 2016 is only 71 days away, and now that the Family Carnival has come and gone, it’s safe to say the most anticipated weekend of the year will be here before we know it. As February looms near, we’re sitting down with each THON Director to get a better feel for their roles and why they THON. Last week, we talked with Family Relations Director Blake Ament, and this week, it’s Technology Director Kevin Leimkuhler’s turn.

Kevin Leimkuhler, Technology

Year: Senior

Major: Computer Science

Past THON Experience:

Technology Captain for THON 2015

Morale Committee Member for THON 2014 and 2013

Name an interesting, weird, or quirky fact about you: I eat peanut butter and jelly a lot.

Onward State: What made you want to apply for Technology Director?

Kevin Leimkuhler: THON has always been a big part of my student experience at Penn State. The Technology committee was an awesome chance for me to combine my passions in THON as well as my major.

OS: What are the responsibilities of Technology?

KL: My main responsibility is to assist the other 15 committees in fulfilling their missions to make sure that THON runs as efficiently as possible throughout the year. The Technology committee oversees all servers, codebases, databases, and the maintenance/development involved with that.

OS: What do you want to implement in your position this year that’s unique and differs from years past?

KL: I want to implement a more efficient development process, a better user experience on all our systems, and continue to focus on security as we begin to collect more data.

OS: What do you think makes Technology so cool, fun, and/or important?

KL: We get to build some really cool systems. We are branched into all different committees and have an extremely unique perspective of THON.

OS: What are the overall goals you wish to reach within your specific position and committee?

KL: I want to leave the Technology committee is a better place that it was when I got here. I was very fortunate to have an awesome director last year and hope to make the same impact in the future.

OS: Why do you THON, Kevin?

KL: I THON so that families impacted by cancer every day know that they aren’t alone in the fight and are able to focus on the more important things.

OS: Can you tell us about your favorite THON memory?

KL: I will always remember THON 2015 as a Technology Captain. It was an awesome feeling seeing everything come together so nicely knowing that what we worked on all year was being used by everyone in the BJC.

OS: Finally, if you could be any dinosaur, which one would you be and why?

KL: I would be a Rhinorex, because it has a cool name.