T E M P L E T O N M A R K
MARK TEMPLETON WANTS YOU TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX B y B re n t W i n t e r
Mark Templeton [EDP ‘75], NC State’s fall 2021 commencement speaker, crowned a storied career several years ago by retiring as CEO of Citrix, a multibillion-dollar software company. So you’d probably never guess that Templeton’s first job fresh out of school was as a draftsman for a sheet metal and roofing company; or that a year and a half after his promotion to the CEO position at Citrix, the company’s board of directors very publicly demoted him for making a critical mistake.
Above: Templeton gives the fall 2021 commencement speech at NC State. Photo by Marc Hall. Bottom left: Templeton addresses an audience at a Synergy technology conference in Orlando. Photo by the Fort Lauderdale / Sun Sentinel. Bottom right: Mark Templeton [EDP ’75] relaxes with friends while learning forging methods by the furnace. 18 | N C State Universit y College of Design
| design.ncsu.edu
