Bryan Bross ’91

Please describe your position and what you enjoy most about it.

I currently serve as Branch Office Manager of the Burlington office as well as Vice President and Director of IT for the entire firm. I work with a variety of private, commercial, industrial, and governmental clients providing engineering and construction phase services throughout SE Iowa for water resources, environmental, and geotechnical type projects. I love to solve client’s problems, and I enjoy seeing happy clients while continuously learning about new ways to solve engineering problems with science and technology. My leadership as Director of IT for the last two decades has allowed me to support our growth to seven offices with 115 employees working in the office and remotely safely and securely as efficiently as possible.

What aspects of your HLGU experience helped you prepare for your career?

I learned how to work with teams to collaborate on big problems. Most importantly though, I learned to recognize God’s image in every human being regardless of whether or not I agree with them or like them. This helps me appreciate the diversity that is necessary for a healthy team to function properly. I really did learn how to learn, and this is a lifelong pursuit to satisfy my curiosity of the order our Creator put into nature and the built environment. His fingerprints are manifested throughout creation.

What have you enjoyed most about your career?

I have enjoyed stepping out in faith with God called me to lead our first branch office in Hannibal, and then again when he called me to uproot my family to manage the merger of our firm with a smaller firm based in Burlington Iowa. This kind of move was not for everyone, but the difficulties I worked through by seeking His wisdom has made me a better person with the ability to handle all kinds of challenges that I would have never had the opportunity to tackle. When you get outside of your comfort zone, get ready for a wild ride that only God can guide you through.

Have you or are you currently continuing your education? If so, please list the institution(s) and degree(s) you earned or are working toward.

I transferred to the University of Missouri – Rolla after leaving HLG as a Valedictorian of my Associate class. I graduated from UMR with a BS in Geological Engineering in December 1993. After many years at Klingner, I chose to obtain my Master of Engineering in Geotechnics from the Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly UMR). This additional education required extreme time management balancing a family, my career, and my education over a period of five years from 2008 through 2012. However, I thoroughly enjoyed all of it, and it even took me on a field trip to Macchu Picchu in Peru.

How did HLGU shape you as a person?

HLGU taught me to appreciate all human beings as images of our God, and that I could separate that from whether or not I agreed with them or liked them. I learned to work well with teams. Also, the writing and critical thinking skills I learned at HLG are being used daily.

Please share a specific example from your career or life when the skills you gained at HLGU helped you most.

My writing skills are used daily to prepare professional engineering opinion letters and reports regularly. I learned to appreciate the value of an outline and to write with the reader in mind.

What professional accomplishment are you most proud of?

In Water Resources it would be leading the design team through a challenging grant funded project for the Gulfport Pump Station along the Mississippi River across from Burlington where we installed through new electric pumps to move up to 150,000 GPM of seepage and rain water back into the river. In Environmental it would be the design of a very large asbestos abatement project in the pipe tunnels of a federal animal disease research facility in northern Iowa. In the geotechnical and construction phase services it would be the design assistance to support the movement of a mobile 1,000 ton crane called “Big Bird” as it lifted many large components exceeding 1,000,000 pounds into place at the $2.1 billion Iowa Fertilizer Plant in Wever, IA. And, finally, in my IT responsibilities I have led our firm to transition seven offices from on-premise legacy phone systems to a cloud based VoIP phone system that is location independent through the recent pandemic. Additionally, I have led us to transition to other cloud based services to improve our disaster resiliency for core services to support our staff.

What HLGU professors played a part in your success? How did your relationship with faculty help you succeed?

Katherine Burt taught me write correctly for each kind of situation that I encounter.
Richard Todd taught me how to look at and solve problems in mathematics, statics, and dynamics; but more importantly he and his wife Jeanne counseled my wife (Cari) and I up to and after our wedding, and were a significant factor in how we raised our kids and conduct our family.
Dr. Paul Brown taught me kindness, grace, and mercy.
Dr. Ken McNutt taught me to appreciate literature of all kinds.
Mr. Jerry Allen taught me to appreciate economics.
Dr. Ziegler taught me to appreciate chemistry and differential equations.
Dr. Cardis Bryan (along with Sam Swisher who was not one of my professors at the time) taught me to love the Old Testament and to see Jesus more clearly and lovely and richly therein.
Dr. Barry Morgan taught me Fortran which is an engineering focused programming language.
Dr. Jerry Thomason taught me to think outside the box and not to rely on assumptions that might not hold true.

Please list any scholarships, honors, or awards you received as an undergraduate or graduate.

I was inducted to Phi Theta Kappa (National Two Year Honor Fraternity) at HLG, and I believe I was the Valedictorian of the Associate class that graduated in May 1991. At Rolla I subsequently was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi (National Academic Honor Society) and was a member of Tau Beta Pi which is a National Engineering Honor Society. I graduated from UMR with my BS in Geological Engineering and Magna Cum Laude.

Do you have any tips to share with students interested in this field?

You don’t have to start out at the 4 year university to get an engineering degree. You can start out at a school like HLGU to get a good footing to learn how to study and avoid getting weeded out in lecture halls full of 600 other students.

What are some of your favorite HLGU memories?

Playing ping pong at the student center and having chapel in a tent. I was worried in the summer of 1989 [after the fire that destroyed the entire administration building] that HLG wouldn’t be there for me to start as a freshman in the fall. The greatest memory is seeing HLG rise from the ashes and be better than before.

What on-campus activities were you involved in at HLGU?

Ping pong was mainly what I remember. I was a commuter student, and I didn’t learn the important lesson until after first semester that you have to be on campus to get the best experience. I did better the second semester.

HLGU’s motto is “knowledge for service.” What roles have these values played in your life?

I have come to believe that you can take this phrase in many ways. Unfortunately, many folks think they can’t serve because they don’t know enough to start with. I have found that service helps me learn more. Thus, I have served on the local school board, as Chair of the local Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Boards, and also in Lions Clubs International in club leadership and currently as a District Governor for 48 clubs and almost 1,000 Lions in Southeast Iowa. So, I would probably recast the phrase as “service for knowledge” because it satisfies my curiosity about people and things that help people.

What is one thing you know now that you wish you’d known when you started in the field?

I didn’t set big enough goals, and I didn’t know what the potential could be. I also didn’t know that my career wasn’t just one thing, but a panorama of opportunities that God would unfold as I walked with Him. It is a practical outworking of Ephesians 2:10. And, finally something that I tell kids nowadays is “figure out what you love to do and then figure how to get paid to do it.”

 

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