Alex Couture ’95 credits URI for his success at Google, where he recently completed a five-year project leading the deployment of Google’s new Publisher ad serving platform and just kicked off a brand new project for the global company.

First, becoming a URI tour guide and pledging a fraternity forced him to transform his shy, risk-averse nature into a confident public speaker and outgoing networker. Then, thanks to business professors who expected their students to exhibit the same work ethic they would in their future careers, he learned to budget his time. And, of course, the business courses he took at URI gave him the knowledge and skills he needed for success in a number of different finance positions, all of which came looking for him rather than the other way around.

Couture eventually applied his business acumen and technical skills in a move out of finance and into technology, when DoubleClick, a company that serves online ads to Internet users all over the world, sought him out for his programming and coding expertise. Not long after, Google bought DoubleClick, and that’s when his connection to URI came full circle.

He was invited to coffee with one of his favorite people from URI’s business school. That coffee led to a donation supporting the renovation of Ballentine Hall. That donation led to an alumni event in New York City and a conversation with URI alumni and business leader Tom Ryan, who told him, on the topic of Google’s buyout of DoubleClick, that he had two choices: leave now or adapt. If you want to stay in your current culture, leave now, because otherwise you will fail. But if you want to succeed, adapt to the new culture with Google.

Couture paid attention. “Those words have stuck with me to this day. If not for that cup of coffee, I never would have gotten that advice and be where I am today,” Couture said. And where he is today is doing work for Google that essentially makes the company’s many well-known services—maps, search, YouTube, and email—free to millions of people around the world.

Couture says he hasn’t come across any other URI grads at Google —yet—and says that he stands toe-to-toe with Harvard, Stanford, and MIT alumni every day. “URI prepared me to think on my feet, apply theory, and execute a vision.”