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Yaerid Jacob
"At Purdue, the classes were often very difficult and thus pushed me to find fellow students to work with which helped greatly. Fortunately, this process seamlessly transferred onto the project development space. Purdue senior year went from a theoretical to a practical approach thanks to Professor Houze. He showcased how to use that theoretical knowledge in practical engineering projects. He also shared two things that still resonates loudly - to be methodical and that a bad engineer re-invents the wheel. This led to me seeking out mentors and not skipping exhausting project steps no matter how daunting the challenge is."
Yaerid Jacob | Chemical Engineering
Founder & CEO, Blueprint Projects
An entrepreneur at heart, Yaerid Jacob recognized the importance of gaining the right experience and exposure early in
his career. He progressed quickly, becoming the youngest project engineering lead at Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemicals by
age 25, working as an M&A investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and eventually taking on the roles of
Director and President of his family businesses, Triune Energy Services and Triune Global Solutions. There, he started a
new commercial development arm and led the execution of a 1.2M square-foot IT park, being the only major development in
the region that was under budget and on schedule despite significant labor shortages, cost increases, and supply chain
limitations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2023, he pivoted away from his family business and founded Texas-based Blueprint Projects, a disruption-focused
developer of high-performance-compute-ready Data Centers. Yaerid and his team are currently executing on 465MW of Data
Center projects in Texas.
R. Neal Houze, emeritus professor at the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, made a lasting impact on Yaerid by
illustrating how to apply theoretical knowledge to practical applications. Two key lessons that continue to resonate
with him are: "be methodical" and "a poor engineer reinvents the wheel."