When Apple product designers began thinking about a new kind of mobile phone, they started with the phones they had.

And they didn’t like what they saw.

"We all hated our phones," said Tony Blevins, a 1989 industrial engineering graduate of the College who is a core member of Apple’s iPhone team. "The genesis of the iPhone was that simple. We said 'We think we can do much better.'"

So they designed the iPhone, which hit stores last year to rapturous praise from critics and consumers. Within six months, the company had sold four million iPhones.

Blevins has played a key role in the iPhone’s success. As a senior executive at Apple, he is responsible for the operations of the iPod and iPhone business units. Duties include designing and managing supply-chain and product-cost relationships, as well as product fulfillment and delivery.

The job is one part technical, one part relationship-based, and all parts intense. Blevins draws on his engineering background to negotiate his long workweeks and extensive international travel schedule.

"What I learned at NC State more than anything else is how to develop and apply analytical thought patterns and processes to any particular problem," Blevins said. "And that’s what I rely on when I’m in really difficult situations." Blevins grew up in West Jefferson, N.C., a small town in the northwestern corner of the state. He excelled in school and received academic scholarships to attend NC State and Duke. He chose Raleigh over Durham.

"Growing up in North Carolina," he said, "my allegiances were always to NC State."

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Tony Blevins (back row center, in red) hosted NC State students, faculty and staff with the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program at his California home in March. (Photo: Nate DeGraff)

After graduation, he obtained a master’s degree in International Business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and landed a job at IBM, where he had international assignments in both Europe and Asia and remained for 12 years.

He eventually moved west to take a job with Apple, and he’s been with the company during its best years. From 2000 to 2007, the company’s annual revenues grew from $6 billion to more than $24 billion.