Lucas Natraj
Lucas was born on May 28, 1977 in Muharraq, Bahrain. He grew up in Bahrain until the early 90s when his family returned to India. Lucas then began attending high school at a British boarding school in the mountain town of Ooty. Following graduation, he began engineering studies at Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, part of Bombay University. He also earned a degree in management from the London School of Economics.
Upon completion of university, Lucas moved to Bangalore to work at Infosys Technologies, Ltd., a prestigious software contracting company. There he worked with the Setlabs problem solving team before moving to the US to work on-site with Infosys client Schlumberger.
Lucas enjoys many sports, especially football (soccer, to those of you in the US). He is also an afficianado of music and plays five different instruments, including the piano and the guitar. Having grown up in the desert, Lucas had never seen snow until last Christmas, which he spent with Meg's family.
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Meg Gotshall
Meg was born in Franklin, Indiana on October 20, 1979. She grew up in the Indianapolis suburb, where her parents still live today. Throughout her childhood, Meg was very active in the local 4‑H program, competing at the county and state fairs in projects including computers, photography, stamp collecting, and genealogy. In 1994, she spent two months living in Japan as a foreign exchange student.
Following her high school graduation, Meg began studying computer science and Japanese at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. During the summers, she worked as an intern with Schlumberger in Austin, Texas and in Paris, France. Upon graduation, she moved to Austin, accepting a full-time position at Schlumberger.
Meg's hobbies include cooking, reading, and wine appreciation. She also maintains her personal website www.megdesk.com, a holdover from her days as an editor on the school newspaper, to keep friends and family updated on significant events.
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How We Met
The lounges in the building where Meg and Lucas work include foosball tables to entertain the engineers during breaks. Lucas was a common fixture at the table and prided himself on being one of the better players in the office. As an intern the previous summer, Meg had plenty of time to learn the game, and upon returning as a full-time employee, she was happy to take it up once again. Thus it came to pass that one day Meg and Lucas were at the table at the same time. As Lucas’s strength is in his offense, and Meg’s preference is to play defense, the two were pitted against each other. While Lucas claimed the victory, both were impressed by the other’s ability.
After a few months had passed, the two were somewhat acquainted with each other, projects and foosball having brought them together more than once. Both had casually mentioned getting together on weekends, but nothing had come of it. One Friday afternoon, the center hosted a deck party for the employees, complete with live music provided by a group of fellow engineers, including Lucas who was to play the drums. Following the party, he asked Meg to help them move equipment back to the center’s music room, joking about her being the band’s "roadie." Meg agreed to help, but after finishing, Lucas went back to work. Before leaving for the weekend, Meg left him a note inviting him to call her that weekend to hang out.
Sunday evening, Meg’s phone rang, and a sniffling Lucas apologized for the delay, explaining that he’d been sick the rest of the weekend. The two got together and drove to a nearby spot, where a high cliff overlooks Lake Austin and the Highway 360 bridge. They chatted late into the night. This evening was followed by many others, and the two have barely been apart since.
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