This is not your typical bio. That’s because this is the beginning of a book.
My birth name is Brian James Anderson. Brian because my mom liked it, but it’s also my dad’s brother’s name. James because of my grandpa James Carroll. Anderson because of my great-great-great-grandpa Anders Christensen Stalquist. His son Frank ditched the properly spelled ‘Andersson’ at some point when he emigrated from Sweden to the United States around the time of the big potato famine of 1867-1869. He and his wife settled in Bluff, Nebraska, where they were surrounded by a lot of Scandinavian emigrants.
Born and Raised
Fast-forward to the modern era and I was born and raised in Sunnyside, Washington, to a mother who enjoyed working as an OB-GYN nurse and a father who loved using his people skills in the insurance industry. I was the fourth of seven children and grew up surrounded by dozens of cousins. Here I am in the front row, second from the left. Although I quickly lost that blonde hair, those characteristic puffy bags under my eyes never seemed to go away.
My childhood was fairly uneventful, except for that time when Mount St. Helens erupted while I was at church with the family. Or the time by brothers put ants in my underpants to see if I would do the boogey dance. I did actually do the boogey dance, and that marked the beginnings of their interest in empirical science and was an indication to me that I could run pretty fast.
The Start of an Education
Zed and the Monsters was one of the first books I remember reading. It was a gift from Mrs. Dow, my kindergarten teacher, because I was such a voracious reader for my age. Oh, how I loved Zed. Pretty soon I was reading Alex Haley’s Roots. It wasn’t that I enjoyed reading for the sake of it, but I found it to be one of the best ways to search and understand the world around me.
I enjoyed school and sports, for the most part, except for that time in the fourth grade when Mrs. Moore yelled at me for not wringing out a wet rag over the sink before using it and that other time when I was a freshman in high school and Coach McKay put me in the basketball game for the first time with one minute left. That one little game became a sort of catalyst for me to graduate high school a year early and head off to the university.
A Brave New World
I only applied to one school: Brigham Young University. BYU was the school where my parents met, where my grandparents were educated, and where my older siblings attended. You could say that it was a family school. For me, it was far enough away to be interesting but close enough to be familiar.
When I arrived on campus, I suffered a bit of a culture shock coming from a small, bi-cultural farming community. But more on that later.
A Texas-Sized Appetite for Work
After graduating in 2001 with a degree in Accounting from Brigham Young University, I moved to Houston, Texas, to work for Exxon Mobil Corporation. Exxon (Mobil was the “silent partner”) was so good to me. They gave me the opportunity to learn and grow, and they encouraged me to seek higher education. Because of their generous educational reimbursement program, I attended the University of Houston Law Center at night for 3 1/2 years and received my Juris Doctorate in 2006. After passing the bar and wrapping up a big work project, I returned to Washington in 2007 and began a solo law practice.
My time in Texas was exhausting, yet formative. So many of my lifelong friends were found in Texas. And it was in Texas, toward the end of my schooling, that I discovered the marathon. I’m not exactly sure why I thought I needed to run in addition to working full time and attending school and raising three kids. Maybe I felt like something was out of balance and maybe running would put things back in line. It took me a while to fully understand that, but it turns out that I was right. Running has become a lifesaver and a passion for me.
My Time in Washington
From 2008-2010, I partnered with attorney Gloria Ochoa and helped manage our little firm. For two years, we specialized in personal injury and criminal defense law. In 2010, after Gloria moved to Spokane, Washington, the law firm was renamed to Anderson Law PLLC, with a primary focus on personal injury law.
To be continued…