At L&P, our Information Technology (IT) professionals often work behind the scenes, enhancing our business systems and processes and providing around-the-clock support to keep us connected.

To celebrate our IT professionals, we’ve been introducing you to some of our amazing colleagues in IT. Today, we’d like you to meet April Ryberg and Dustin Sommer!

April Ryberg, Senior Director of IT Development

April has been with us for 20 years and values the connections she has made across L&P.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“I enjoy the relationships that I have made with my IT and business colleagues. I also enjoy improving IT and business processes and advancing our technologies.”

What inspired you to start a career in IT?

“When I was very young, I received a Timex Sinclair 1000 (a computer) that someone gave to my dad in the early 1980s. I was fascinated with writing BASIC (Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) language programs. I would use my allowance to buy Compute! magazine and would copy the programs into the computer. Initially, I had no external tape drive to save anything, so I would enter the programs again and again, testing my own changes. My passion for development started there, leading me to high school courses and ultimately degrees in computer science from Kansas State University and Pittsburg State University in Kansas.”

Dustin Sommer, Director of IT Governance, Risk, and Compliance

Dustin has been with us for 22 years and is a part of the Information Security team.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“I enjoy working with and helping people. Generally, the IT field consists of solving problems, and we are called to provide technology solutions to meet business objectives. It is satisfying when I solve an issue or help a person with a new idea or solution. That’s the reward of being an IT professional.”

What inspired you to start a career in IT?

“Like many others, I wasn’t sure what field I wanted to pursue when I started college. I liked math and felt that IT might be a field that would hang around for many years. So, I took my first computer class, and the rest is history. I’ve been blessed to have many opportunities along this journey and still have plenty of learning to do. 

I’ve also been adjunct teaching since 2018 at Missouri Southern State University to prepare future IT professionals. This field is vast with opportunities, and I enjoy seeing the next generation start their journeys in IT.”

At L&P, our Information Technology (IT) professionals often work behind the scenes, enhancing our business systems and processes and providing around-the-clock support to keep us connected.

IT Professionals Day is September 19, and we want you to meet some of our amazing colleagues in IT!

Darren Jones, IT Support Supervisor

Darren has been with L&P for four and a half years, and his team manages all the physical IT-related needs of the branches. They primarily support our ECS (Elite Comfort Solutions) branches and assist others as needed.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“Sharing knowledge and working with my colleagues to resolve problems brings me joy. I also like socializing with our end users, because over time, you create relationships with them. Offering peace of mind to an end user by resolving their IT issues is a driving force.”

What inspired you to start a career in IT?

“In the late 1990s, I discovered a computer game called QUAKE and therein found a community of friends, many of whom were in IT. I learned to build my first computer, and through conversations with my QUAKE brethren, I realized that I found the career I wanted to pursue.”

Mario Sever, IT Director for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa)

Mario has been with us for 19 years and enjoys working with our teams across the globe.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to work with L&P partners and team members around the world. I enjoy helping them by supporting their businesses with IT tools.”

What inspired you to start a career in IT?

“When I was in primary school, my father bought me a Commodore 64 (a computer), which influenced me the most in choosing IT. I started with fun things like gaming, and after a few months, I began programing in BASIC (Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) language programs. Finally, I went to university for IT and started a career.”

At L&P, our Information Technology (IT) professionals often work behind the scenes, enhancing our business systems and processes and providing around-the-clock support to keep us connected.

IT Professionals Day is September 19, and we want you to meet some of our amazing colleagues in IT!

Jason Tyler, Principal Security Architect

Jason has been with us for 23 years and enjoys working with the many dedicated and talented people at L&P.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“While I enjoy the technical aspects and challenges of security architecture, what truly sets Leggett apart is its culture and willingness to continuously improve. My role serves as a catalyst to bring many people together to create a secure environment for the company to grow while enabling business processes to function.”

What inspired you to start a career in IT?

“At nine years old, I fell in love with DOS 3.2 (an operating system). Ted, my mentor and friend, took my DOS manual and put a line through all the commands that were deemed too dangerous to run, so naturally, I ran a few of them and formatted a few system disks as a result. Making mistakes and learning from them have taught me many valuable lessons and inspired me to continue to expand my IT knowledge.

In high school, I had opportunities to work with high-end Silicon Graphics Indy and Octane machines and run a Bulletin Board System (BBS) at home. At this point, IT was in my blood. I applied for my first job at McDonald’s and was turned down (guess I wasn’t qualified), so I applied at RadioShack and they hired me! The rest is a technical blur, as I’ve worked on thousands of machines and networks.”

Julie Storm, IT Support Analyst III

Julie has been with us for 17 years and is currently Tier 2 Support, which is where IT-related issues go if support beyond what our Service Desk can provide is needed.  

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“Working with a wide variety of people from all over the world is the best part of my job! I get to form long-lasting friendships with the kind of people that you know would always be there to pick you up when you fall (right after they stop laughing at you). These relationships are so important to my job because they help me discover that a problem is forming before it gets too large.

The people in the branches and in sales really help make money for L&P, so keeping those people running is how I contribute.”

What inspired you to start a career in IT?

“I was working at a large tech company, and during the morning production meetings, it became very obvious to me how much impact IT support, whether good or bad, can have on the day-to-day ability of a company to earn money. Also, I was told that I have the face for phone support. That probably was not the compliment I took it to be.”