The Road to ITS: Jonathan Pletzke
October 22, 2009| In News, Features, PeopleHe was fortunate to have been home that bright sunny Tuesday. Otherwise, he would have been in the city. He walked through the World Trade Center every morning on his way to work on Broad Street. But September 11, 2001 changed everything for Jonathan Pletzke.
“We were living in Morristown, N. J. just 30 miles west of Manhattan. When they showed the second plane hitting on television, I watched it live and wondered if we would be next,” said Pletzke. “A neighbor down the street went to work that day and never came home. 9/11 had a huge impact on us. It made my wife and I totally re-evaluate our lives, where we were and where we wanted to be.”
Almost immediately, Jonathan and Victoria Pletzke put their house on the market and with their two young children in tow took to the road to see where else they might want to live.
“We were completely free,” said Pletzke.
First port of call was a visit to Pletzke’s parents in Maryland and then on to Chapel Hill, Charlotte and Florida.
“I really liked Chapel Hill a lot,” said Pletzke. “We were attracted to Florida, but the congestion and concerns about education steered us back to North Carolina. We chose Chapel Hill over any other place on the planet.”
So in 2001, Pletzke accepted a job at Railinc and the family settled into life in the Tar Heel state.
Pletzke's "game face"
Pletzke was born in New York, N.Y. to parents who were both University librarians.
“I was always being shushed,” laughed Pletzke. “We also moved a number of times, but when I was in fifth grade, we settled in Bethesda, Md.”
While there, his entrepreneurial streak emerged.
“In grade school, I shoveled snow. As a Boy Scout, I sold light bulbs. By high school I had my own consulting business. I was interested in computer software and enjoyed finding and facilitating the use of new solutions.”
He worked with an Apple dealership and that relationship continued through his college career when he attended the University of Maryland College Park. He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering.
“I loved working with Apple. I was exposed to new products before or just after they came out,” said Pletzke. “I was ahead of the game and at that time, it was definitely a young person’s game. And I made some pretty good money too. When I went out on the town, I always had $100 cash in my pocket – and I went out quite a bit.”
Following graduation, Pletzke’s career ranged from jobs doing research and development at NASA and the Department of Defense to classified work on intelligence systems.
Then Pletzke moved to New York to work at NYNEX, the New York telephone company.
“I was on the leadership team for my project. I met my wife, Victoria, at a one day meeting in Boston. She liked red wine, which I found an endearing quality. No white, no rose. If she had, I’m not sure there would have been a relationship,” said Pletzke.
Within the year, they were married although four months passed after the initial meeting before they even met again. Jonathan continued to consult as a Smalltalk programming expert in finance, insurance, telecom, and education industries, wrote his first book and collaborated with his wife on part of another.
After their relocation to North Carolina in 2001, a third child, Charles, joined siblings Madeleine and Harrison. In 2005, the Pletzke decided to make another change.
Pletzke and his kids
“We decided to explore new models of publishing and we created a start-up publishing company called Aji Publishing,” said Pletzke. “It was really more part-time for me. I took the opportunity to volunteer in the public schools several times a week and it also allowed me to be very hands on with raising my kids. I learned so much about the community and its children. I also became a consumer expert on health insurance and wrote a consumer-oriented book.”
But on Jan. 1, 2008, Pletzke’s wife asked him “Why don’t you get out of the house?”
“I took the hint,” said Pletzke. “I flooded the UNC-Chapel Hill HR Web site with applications. On April 28, I started work as an application analyst for ITS. I love it and I plan to stay here until I retire.”
Pletzke currently works on Biomedical Informatics with the TraCS Institute.
In his spare time, Pletzke makes homemade beer and wine, creates chocolate houses around the holidays, serves as Cubmaster for his son’s Cub Scout pack and continues to be involved with electronic publishing. 
