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.”

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!

Bilal Bhatti, IT Project Manager

Bilal has been with us for two months, so his journey at L&P is just beginning.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“I enjoy collaboration and continuous learning. Collaboration is important because a project’s success depends on effective teamwork and communication. I also enjoy the continuous learning opportunities, as many projects involve cutting-edge technologies and methodologies. We have the opportunity to stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies, which can be intellectually stimulating.”

What inspired you to start a career in IT?

“Being a problem solver was my inspiration. I love being around technologies and finding creative solutions to use and improve them. This eventually led me to obtain my Bachelor of Science Degree in IT – Networking & Telecommunications 12 years ago from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.”

Mark Taylor, Sr. Global Network Manager

Mark has been with us for a year and served in the U.S. Army and National Guard for 30 years. His team is responsible for “keeping the lights on,” which means ensuring that cables, circuits, and permissions allow for secure and reliable network access to the applications that help L&P make products and move them around.  

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“The best thing at L&P is the people. I really like driving down our time to repair with a team of dedicated engineers and working with many of our vendors to implement best practices, monitor, and troubleshoot. Every day, there’s a new problem, challenge, or project, and that’s why I love IT.”

What inspired you to start a career in IT?

“The constant change and improvement in IT capabilities keeps me excited about work each day.

Fresh out of college, I had two careers — one as a civilian and one as an officer in the National Guard. As a civilian, I started working at Hewlett Packard as an Environmental Health and Safety professional and quickly realized I was actually good at this Unix (an operating system) stuff. I was always writing programs and creating web forms for safety issue reporting. Then, I got a chance to be full-time with the Army and chose IT management as my secondary skill.

One of my favorite times was when I served as a Brigade S-6 (a Signal Officer). I was responsible for the communications systems across a Heavy Armored Cavalry Brigade and was given an opportunity to run the base’s data center. The IT knowledge I gained helped me remain employed as I transitioned back to being a civilian.”

At L&P, our employees inspire us every day with their leadership and initiative — both at work and beyond.

Today, we’d like to recognize Terry Sylvester! Terry has been with L&P for four years and works in Product Development at our branch in Sparta, Michigan. As a People First Champion for his branch, a successful business owner at Sylvester’s Luxurious Mobile Detailing, and a podcast host for Surviving StartUp, Terry talked to us about leadership, being open to change, and creating opportunities for others:

“Being a leader at L&P opened doors to things I didn’t know or wouldn’t have known in other positions. I’ve learned many things about inclusion from our People First local conversations, and learning about different perspectives has also helped me at my detailing business.”

Terry continued, “Being a leader is everything. If there’s an issue and we can figure it out, let’s do it instead of complaining. People talk about change, but what matters is the effort behind that talk. I also believe that change starts with our kids. There’s a saying that kids are the future, and if that’s the case, why not create great opportunities for them now rather than making them wait?”

With this idea, Terry and a local friend took responsibility and recently hosted a Young Entrepreneurs Expo in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for people ages 17 and under. The event gave area youth an opportunity to build connections, get career advice, and showcase their entrepreneurship.

“The event was amazing, and the turnout was awesome. I never knew how many kids are actually interested in entrepreneurship and already have so much going on,” reflected Terry.

We are proud of and grateful to our employees like Terry who live our L&P values at work and beyond!