Austin Bryan here.  Class of '86.  Physics major and proud of it.

20 years.  20 years gone by since I was in class.  Hard to fathom.

Did I take advantage of my major?  Well, yes.  More or less. Eventually.  OK, here's the rundown:

After graduation I moved to Colorado Springs, CO.

Pursued and received MA in education with emphasis in secondary science from Colorado College.  Spent 5 years in the public school system teaching physics, chemistry, and math ( I finally got enough of a grip on calculus to teach first year calculus.  I went to Univ. of CO and re-took the calc. classes I took at Knox.  Amazing how much more sense it made the second time around.).

Took a break from the scholastic thing and managed a popular downtown restaurant for 5 years.  Not a lot of physics, but working in the food service industry can certainly battle-harden you as a manager.  And thankfully, unlike rowdy high school students, if employees get out of line, you can fire them.

Back to school.  Associate Deg. in computer-aided design and animation from Pikes Peak Community College.  Upon completing the program I suggested to my instructor that I might be a good candidate to actually teach what I had just learned.  After 18mos in the CAD/CAM industry I was invited to teach a light load of classes.  The following 4 years saw me teaching more, eventually a full load, eventually even time as the Dept. Chair.  During this time I developed a keen interest in the computer programming associated with AutoCAD software I was teaching.  It became clear that computer programming was right down my alley.

A phone call out of the blue from someone who is now a close friend put me in front of some skeptical businessmen running a business called Encon (his employer).  Among other things they engineer/fabricate pre-stressed and precast concrete for major construction projects.  One slick presentation later I had convinced them I could write custom software to automate a variety of their engineering and fabrication processes.  I worked night and day to maintain the CAD program at school and also write my first software application.  They were apparently impressed.  They made me an offer I could not refuse, so I held my breath, resigned my teaching position, and jumped into the software world whole hog.  Since then I have been writing software applications on a freelance basis and learning more than I ever thought I might know about concrete and steel.  www.CADPrototypes.com

See?  Physics sorta weaves in and out of that whole story.

Happily married to a great woman for the last 11 years (as of Sep 13).  No kids, 2 cats.  Almost have my golf handicap into single digits.  Totally ensconced in Colorado Springs and plan to never leave.

I carried something with me from your classroom that has served me well over the years.  I was always impressed by the grace with which you handled yourself when things went awry on the chalkboard during some grisly calculation.  I seem to remember an occasional, "Rats!", but it was always followed by careful inspection of your work until the problem was found and solved (with possibly a reserved sense of glee).  While teaching, I tried to emulate this behavior when I ran into trouble at the board and use it as a learning tool, impressing upon the students how important it was to be able to effectively "de-bug" their work.  It is certainly a valuable skill when I have a programming bug running amok in 50,000 lines of code!  So, maybe it is not exactly your traditional warm fuzzy, but it turns out I am reminded of you when I see a message like this pop up on my screen:

"TYPE MISMATCH ERROR @ ln2120".

That's about the size of it!  Hope you enjoy hearing from past students as much as I do. 

Health and happiness to you,

Austin