Brady's Bio
I was born in Texas and grew up in an Air Force family all over the West. I arrived in Montana as a ninth grader back in 1971. Yes, that means I'm now 49. Malmstrom Air Force Base was my first Montana home.
My first big Montana experience that summer of '71 was a week-long, 70-mile Boy Scout backpacking trip in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. I'd been camping all my life, and backpacking in California, but this was a life-changing experience. Big country, big sky, big living. That first winter, I discovered what became one of the major joys of my life: skiing.
It was in the Boy Scouts, by the way, that I learned most of what I know about leadership. I fell just short of becoming an Eagle Scout, what with all the moving around and discovery of the world's greatest distraction for teenage boys: teenage girls. This was the period when I thought that 19 was about the absolute height of human maturity.
After 2 years in Great Falls, my dad got transferred to Germany, so that's where I graduated from high school and started college. This was another life-altering experience. I learned more about my country, my government, American culture and how the world works in those three years in Europe than any surly teenager deserves.
Then we moved back to Great Falls and I attended college on the extended plan, working on skis and bicycles as my introduction to the working world. I studied engineering at MSU and eventually graduated from UM with degrees in Computer Science and German.
The 80's not being a prosperous time in Montana, I went off into the big world again to launch my career. After 4 years learning the software trade in Dallas and Austin, I landed a job with Goldman Sachs in New York. That's the world's premier investment bank. This was where my education in big-money finance and economics really took off.
This was followed by software consulting gigs in London, Florida, San Francisco, and again in New York with various brand name banks.
After I'd had enough of big cities, I landed back in Bozeman in 1990, and have been here pretty much ever since. I've worked in a number of local tech firms. I had my own business for five years with my old pal Steve Titus, where we invented software for the pharmaceutical industry and sold it all over the world from a little office on Babcock Street. I've spent the last six years at RightNow Technologies, which is a great place to work. I have a US Patent pending with RightNow.
I got involved with politics in 1991 when I co-founded Montanans Against Toxic Burning, one of the most effective anti-pollution groups in the state. I ran for the Legislature in 2002 when I came second, the placed first in 2004. I served my first term in the Montana House in the 2005 legislative session.
All of that pales in significance to the most important event in my life, getting married to my wife Cyndy Andrus. We celebrate our 10th anniversary in October.