Alumnus’ education helps acheive software career
Five years, a growing family and a college education is how Bryan Amundson began his career. He said he had a wife with one son and another on the way when he graduated in 1988. Amundson graduated with a degree in computer science, with an emphasis on business administration.
Amundson began attending USU in 1983. He met and married his wife a year later, worked and studied for five years following. He said he worked for a local radio station and said he remembers doing live broadcasts from tailgate parties and football games at Romney Stadium.
Amundson also said he distinctly remembers the winters in USU. Amundson said he lived at the bottom of Old Main in an apartment and remembers the mornings when the temperature was 10 degrees below zero and he would walk to the library.
“I wouldn’t wear a hat like an idiot because I didn’t want to mess up my hair,” he said. “So by the time I got to the library, my ears felt like they were going to fall off.”
The Amundsons had their first child while he was still in college. Amundson said it was hard, because he was working full time at the radio station as well as taking more than 12 credits.
“It was tough, but that’s OK. There are a lot of times where you do things and they may be tough but they certainly are worthwhile,” he said.
Amundson had a job three days after he graduated college. He packed up his growing family and moved to Orem, ready to pursue a job in Provo. Amundson said he worked at Dynix for three years as a support engineer. He helped support people all over the country with the systems Dynix created. Dynix created a computer catalog system for libraries, and Amundson answered questions, helped with technical difficulties and helped design programs specifically for the various customers.
After three years of working at Dynix, Amundson began working for Novell. He was a technology support engineer for NetWare, which was the original operating system at Novell. He said he then began working in developer support, helping programmers write programs that ran on Novell’s operating system.
For the past 10 years, Amundson said he has been working on consulting. He writes custom software for people all around the world, used mostly to synchronize data bases. He said applications like those used in banking and health care are the kinds of software he and his company make.
–april.ashland@aggiemail.usu.edu