Grateful

So let's start with a little background. I met Linda, and everything got better fast. I worked hard to perform well and get accepted into the school of my choice. Before long we were talking about marriage, and she was planning to complete her student teaching in Emery County and up in south Salt Lake, so we delayed our sealing for a number of months. At some point, I decided I needed to get more substantial work to make money and prepare for the upcoming wedding expenses.

Somehow, I decided to apply for a job at the Utah County Journal. It was a full time job, but the hours were at night so I didn't think it would conflict with my schooling, I guess. Well it did. My sole focus could not be on homework and study, and the strenuous work hours impacted my performance in the business school. Soon poor scores plagued my ability to get into the school of accounting at all. Things were not going the way I had planned. This was back in the 80s and the public Internet had not yet been introduced. Computers were changing our isolated locations around the world, but we really had no idea what the future held. It was about that time that I decided to go into communications and major in public relations.
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The significance of that choice at the time meant that I would spend a good deal of time composing papers since writing was an important component of every major in the school of communications. WordPerfect was the word processor of choice back in those days, but technology was new and though incredible, it was far less than what we have today. The fervent growth was just the beginning of what was yet to come.

Well, I became pretty proficient using WordPerfect, so a year or so after I graduated, I decided to apply for a customer support position at WordPerfect Corporation in Orem. The technical exam was challenging, because it talked about command line protocols, disk sizes, kilobyte capacities, and computer terminology that was way above my understanding, but I hoped I did okay. I think I did, but actually I never really found out. What happened next was mind blowing.

Your mother and I had moved to our third apartment, which was essentially just east of BYU's Wilkinson Center. It was a little
house and our apartment was on the main floor. I found it the day the landlord was pounding a "For Rent" sign in the front yard grass. The apartment in the basement belonged to another family. I managed the location and sent the rent checks to the owner every month for which he gave us a little better deal on our apartment to compensate us for helping him out.

So, one day I was studying in the living room when there was a knock at the door. When I got up from what I was doing to answer the door, Tintti Huttu--a woman from Finland to whom we had taught the gospel--was standing on our porch. I invited her into our home, introduced her to Linda, and we visited about all the good old times in Finland. A few minutes later after we were all talked out, Tintti asked me if I wouldn't mind driving her back to the airport to catch her flight, which I agreed to do. On the way she wanted to stop at a missionary's home so she could drop off a package that he had given her for his family he had given her to deliver. Of course, I agreed.

The home was just north of the Orem temple. When we went to the door and knocked, the man that answered the door invited us in to visit with the family, speak Finnish for them, and hear all about their missionary son from Tintti. I learned more about the family and the father in particular, Steve Ashton, because he is the brother of Alan Ashton who was the owner of WordPerfect. So after our visit, we continued on to the airport, and Tintti caught her plane back to Finland. A few days later, we received a nice gift on our front porch from the Steve and Marilyn Ashton's family we had visited. They were so kind and became instant friends. The point of my telling you this story is that I had not heard back yet from WordPerfect regarding the exam I had taken when applying for the job. I thought "maybe I should ask Steve Ashton to put in a good word for me." So I called him up to say hello then nervously said something like "I recently applied at WordPerfect and wondered if..." That's all I needed to say. Steve cut me off and said " Say no more Mathew. I will take care of it."

The next day I got a call from Claire Everett and was given the job at WordPerfect, which redirected my career into a technology vein and has proven very valuable to our whole family over the last 40+ years.

Customer support evolved into training, testing, and eventually Quality Assurance--but it all started with Steve Ashton.

I am not all that sure what Steve Ashton does today. One day many years ago. I reached out to his son who works at Thanksgiving Point and asked him some questions. We had a nice visit, and during our conversation, he asked me how I knew his father. I shared this story with him at the time.

The younger Stephen Ashton is the ​Senior Director, Butterfly Biosphere and Curiosity Farms at Thanksgiving Point, where your mother regularly volunteers today.

Thank you Ashtons!