By LINDSAY SKOUSEN
The opportunities, rewards and challenges that a BYUSA president faces during their term in office do not stop with the end of the academic school year.
The BYUSA presidents from past years have gone on to their various careers and fields, but all of them feel the qualities they gained during their term as president have helped them in their new pursuits.
Most people who attended BYU last year will remember Dallin Anderson, BYUSA president for the 1997-98 academic year.
Anderson, who graduated from BYU in June 1998, is now a financial analyst for Intel Corporation. He and his wife live in Sacramento, Calif., with their three children.
Anderson feels he learned many valuable things during his term as president that have helped him in many areas of his life.
“The experiences and things that I learned by being BYUSA president have helped me to build and develop skills that are helpful in my profession and with my family,” Anderson said.
1994-95 BYUSA President Matt Cowley, like Anderson, believes that his experience as BYUSA president has helped him in his profession as a consultant.
“I learned how large organizations work and how to deal with people well. Those kind of skills are very important expecially when I walk into a Fortune 500 company as their consultant,” Cowley said.
Cowley and his wife live in the San Francisco Bay area where Cowley is a information technology consultant for Anderson Consulting.
Another past BYUSA preident, Amy Baird Miner, who was president during the 1991-92 school year, recieved her master’s degree in literature from BYU in August of last year.
Miner now lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and two daughters where she supervises BYU students who are doing their student teaching in Houston. She is also in charge of a youth group in the area.
“One of the greatest things I learned as BYUSA president is how to represent different issues. I like to get involved in local issues with the school board and public,” Miner said.
Suprisingly, only a few of the past BYUSA presidents have gone into law and politics.
1993-94 BYUSA president, Mike Lee, is currently working for a federal court of appeals judge in New Jersey and says he hopes to someday go into politics. Lee said that his experience as BYUSA president has helped him in the various positions in law that he’s held.
“Being BYUSA president helped me to learn how to convience people of my ability to do a good job,” Lee said.
What advice do these past BYUSA presidents have for future presidents?
“Think big,” Cowley said, “Oh, and don’t forget to do your homework.”
