Eric Beppler: NC State Senior Portraits

As I drove from Winston-Salem, North Carolina to N.C State in Raleigh, I grew more and more excited to return to such a beautiful campus. The last time I was at N.C State, I met Meredith Vertrees (now Meredith Eddy!). Today I was meeting another member of the wolf pack, Eric Beppler.

We met at the iconic bell tower.

Before our photoshoot, we chose his favorite spots on campus and mapped out where we would go. My intention was to take classic posed portraits as well as lifestyle senior photos, showing where he spent most of his time at N.C State.

As we walked from place to place, he told me his story.

Eric is a graduate from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Undergraduate program at N.C State.

As a Senior Park Scholar, Eric was able to work closely with the N.C State administration in organizing, planning and running events. One such event was the final rally of Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential campaign.

Eric was a part of history, sitting only a few seats away from the Clinton family, Lady Gaga, and Jon Bon Jovi. He also helped NC State prepare for the arrival of First Lady Michelle Obama.

Talk about an epic college experience!

Eric said he also worked during the opening of Talley Student Center, a new building on campus. He was able to sit with the architects during their lunch hour. He said they used architectural symbolism to represent the Engineering/Science disciplines and the Artistic disciples of N.C State.

One side of the building his constructed with angular lines, representing the science/math industries and the other side of the building is constructed with curved lines, representing the artistic industries.

During his days at N.C State, he worked with his colleagues to start his own business, VieMetrics.

"Eric explores and develops the connection between technology and a better, healthier life[...] VieMetrics Inc. was created to help small companies take ideas and bring them to life. We offer expertise in key areas to help push biomedical devices to market. [...] By creating systems that can constantly monitor and treat chronic conditions while providing real time information to both patients and providers Eric brings healthcare into a modern, connected age." - Eric's LinkedIn

Eric and his colleagues won first place in three categories of the LuLu eGames Start Up Competition, hosted by the Entrepreneur Initiative at N.C State.

"The development of a low-cost, portable spirometer that can potentially predict asthma attacks. First place ($10,000) New Venture category, first place ($5,000) Social Impact category and first place ($5,000) Design and Prototype category."

During his days at N.C State, he spent a lot of his time at Hunt Library.

There he introduced me to BookBot.

Instead of a traditional library with rows of books to browse, all of the books are kept in the tall containers pictured. The yellow arm is Bookbot. Once a book is requested, Bookbot finds the book and brings it forward. When a book is returned, Bookbot places the book in the first spot available, making the sorting order completely random. The most requested books will end up closer to the front for easy, quick finding.