Joseph Deasy

People often talk about the “Sunday scaries,” that nervousness or tension that creeps in the night before going back to work after a weekend or holiday. Joe Deasy has never experienced it, and he makes a point of saying so to illustrate how much he enjoys his job. The marketing manager for Teledyne Photometrics, a Surrey-based company that develops cameras for microscopes, it’s the only company Deasy has worked for since graduating with a major in physics for modern technology from Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) in 2018. He’s thrilled to be working with some of the most innovative scientists in their field.

“I work with a lot of companies that are kind of developing cutting edge technology,” Deasy says. “There have been times where I’ve walked out of labs with my mouth open, just in awe of what some people are doing out there. (It’s) stuff that wouldn’t necessarily affect you or me today, but in five years will be commonplace in every LifeLabs or wherever, because these people are pushing the limits.” It’s Deasy’s job to build and implement the business development and marketing plans for these technologies, which is impressive in its own right. He’s doing so well, in fact, the people running the KPU program have enlisted Deasy to promote it on a volunteer basis and serve on its advisory committee. In many ways, he’s a poster child for what success can look like for graduates of the relatively new program. Deasy started as an intern at Teledyne Photometrics, back when it was called QL Imaging, while still pursuing his degree. At the time, he thought he was going to be a teacher, but was offered a job as a support engineer, which he did for eight months before being promoted to technical advisor. About a year later, he was promoted again to product manager. He just kept moving up. “The more I did this work, the more I realized I liked it and enjoyed the role, so I stuck with it,” he says. Last summer, he was promoted to marketing manager, where he serves as the go-between for the sales, engineering and marketing departments, allowing him to play a key role in business operations. Business has become such an interest he’s in the midst of obtaining an MBA from the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University, although he says his training in physics is just as useful in this context as it would be in a lab.

“Physics gives you a really good process to digest really complicated problems,” Deasy says. “The approach that I learned studying physics is one I use every day to tackle big business problems.” Like a lot of students, Deasy initially attended KPU because he wasn’t sure in which direction he wanted to take his career. Rather than go to a larger, more expensive institution, he figured he’d try a year at KPU to figure things out. “I started just studying normal physics courses. Then I heard a lot about the program and got to know the professors. Once I was more comfortable with the content, I decided to enroll,” he says. “The thing about KPU is the smaller class sizes are fantastic. You get to know your classmates really well. It’s kind of like you’re in the trenches together, getting through these super hard courses in third and fourth year. You get to know the professors really well, and then it just makes everything a bit more fun. And the hands-on experience of lab work is a huge thing.” His class was so tightknit he knew the families of some of his professors. He says the program did a good job of ensuring students in all years were interacting with, and learning from, one another.

It was this kind of environment that nurtured his skills in the business side of his industry, an experience he’s not so sure he could have got at any other institution. “Just because someone goes to a bigger university doesn’t mean they’re more qualified than you. I know that’s one thing that high school students are very caught up on. “In the workforce, people care about what you can do, not where you went to school. KPU is very good at preparing you to do the work,” he says.