Leaders & Achievers 2022
BRUCE PARKES
Systems engineer, International Game Technology PLC
GROWING UP EATING Vegemite sandwiches in Australia, Bruce Parkes never envisioned landing in the U.S., or a career with global gaming company International Game Technology PLC.
Preparing for Potential Tax Changes
The upcoming 2024 election will have a major impact on tax policy, specifically provisions created…
Learn More
Working in different cultures – Australia, America and rotations in Asia for one project – has been one key to Parkes’ success. Parkes, the company’s systems engineer, also credits longevity with IGT and experience riding the telecommunications boom after he left then-GTECH Corp. to make fiberoptic amplifiers at a former University of Rhode Island professor’s startup company, Optigain. Unfortunately, Parkes fell victim to the technology bust when he was laid off from Optigain after two years.
“It’s one of those things where, if it wasn’t for the financial stress of being unemployed and caring for your family, I recommend unemployment for every professional,” Parkes said. “It’s really a time to do some inward thinking about what you want to do and where you want to be.”
Teaching at Johnson & Wales University’s School of Technology in the fall of 2002 only grew Parkes’ leadership skills and helped him realize product development is his real love, he said.
‘The other thing that really makes me tick is to create the environment for the people to … do things they might not think they could do.’
“That’s why I came back to IGT, to lead the product development teams,” Parkes said.
Having a father and older brother working as electricians also helped spark Parkes’ interest in the field. After graduating high school in his native Australia, he worked for an electric utility while earning his associate degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the College of Technical and Further Education in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
Two years after marrying and settling in Australia, Parkes and his wife were bound for the U.S. Parkes completed his bachelor’s degree at URI in December 1995.
During Parkes’ senior year, he interviewed with GTECH – long before its 2015 merger with IGT. Even then, the company offered an end-to-end approach to product development that attracted him.
Inclusivity in myriad forms describes and drives Parkes’ leadership.
“The other thing that really makes me tick is to create the environment for the people to not only succeed but to do things they might not think they could do,” Parkes said.
