Echoes

It doesn’t take long for Jeffrey Gresham to know when something big is happening in the U.S. and world economies.

As an associate at JP Morgan & Co., one of the world’s largest banks, Gresham’s problem-solving skills help the company’s traders make sense of the data they use to participate in the world’s markets. After all, the financial well-being of clients — large corporations, governments and high net worth persons — lies in the balance.

“Stress comes with any job on Wall Street. It can be a real presssure cooker. After all, you’re in the middle of the financial market for the world,” says the 1988 Rose-Hulman electrical engineering graduate. “Luckily, I’m not dealing with investing. That’s where the stakes are really high.”

Gresham, a member of JP Morgan’s Fixed Income Application Delivery Department since May of 1997, helps develop computer software programs that process market data and deliver it to traders’ workstations. Data originate from sources external to the bank (Reuters, Dow Jones Markets and Bloomberg) as well as proprietary sources internal to the bank (JP Morgan’s own traders, economists and investment consultants). Raw market data is processed to produce complex analytics, such as historical volatility, or simple calculations, such as the spread in price between certain bonds and the most comparable U.S. treasury benchmark. Data and analytics update in real-time as markets move, and are displayed on front-end applications such as Excel spreadsheets.

“If a trader questions certain market data or analytics, it is our responsibility to troubleshoot and resolve problems as quickly as possible since there is a lot of money on the line,” says Gresham, 31, who also works on long-range development projects. “The support line starts ringing at 8:30 a.m., when the bond market opens. Usually, all problems are resolved by 10:30 or 11 a.m.

“Days on support are usually stressful, since you have to quickly get to the source of problems and resolve them,” he adds. “Traders on the floor are pretty high-strung individuals in high-pressure positions. We are the ones that the traders vent their frustrations on when things go wrong.”

That’s when Gresham may wish for the carefree days as a systems engineer for Texas Instruments in Dallas. He worked in the defense and commercial ventures groups on projects utilizing the company’s proprietary Digital Light Processing (DLP) technology. He spent nearly nine years in Dallas, the last year as lead software engineer responsible for developing real-time embedded software.

Ironically, while at Texas Instruments, Gresham helped form an investment club with nine fellow engineers. That sparked an interest in financial markets. Then, a romance blossomed with a New York-based telecommunications marketing consultant, Janine DeNicola, after meeting on a Club Med vacation. The couple plans to be married May 24.

“Luckily, JP Morgan was hiring engineers, mathematicians and physicists for information technology and research positions,” says Gresham, a National Merit Scholar at Munster High School who was co-recipient of the Heminway Award as the top scholar in Rose-Hulman’s 1988 graduating class. “I never imagined ending up in New York or working in the financial services industry. It just shows that engineering, mathematics and software skills are very transferable in today’s job market.

“The analytical problem-solving skills that I developed at Rose-Hulman served me well in graduate school (Southern Methodist University), Texas Instruments and JP Morgan,” he said. “For example, the same random process theory we learned about in communication systems classes is especially applicable to the pricing of certain derivative securities such as stock options.

“I don’t think someone with strictly a business background would be able to perform my job. Conversely, I wouldn’t be qualified to take a seat on the trading floor and trade interest rate futures,” said Gresham, who is considering adding an MBA in finance or a master’s degree in the mathematics of finance to his already impressive academic resume. He would also like to live and work abroad.

“Working on Wall Street is like working anywhere else, except that I’m at the center of the financial universe,” he adds. “Every day is exciting.”