Richard McAllister
Richard McAllister was born in 1968 at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. 37 years later, he lives just half a mile from his birthplace. The youngest of four children, he grew up in Sandy, Utah. At the time, his house was surrounded by sheep pasture and farmland. When he ventures to the south end of the valley now, he marvels at the change his hometown has made since he moved to downtown Salt Lake City.
As a graduate from the University of Utah with a degree in Psychology and Chemistry, Richard decided he'd had enough of school. He was working in Surgery and Labor & Delivery at LDS Hospital as a technician/orderly when he learned of an opening in Sales at XMission. Excited at the prospect of working for a small, growing technology company, he submitted his résumé and has remained an indentured servant of XMission ever since.
For over a year, Richard has been our outside sales agent specializing in Datacenter and Colocation services. He has an uncanny ability to take complex details and systems and explain them in simple, easy to understand ways. If you want to see Richard act like a kid in a candy store, ask him to talk about the interactions between all of the backup systems in the XMission datacenter. He loves to brag about the growth he has seen at XMission and the accomplishments the company makes. He, like many people at XMission, is a geek at heart.
Two things that Richard enjoys passionately are Tiki culture of the mid-twentieth century and cars. While he doesn't have the budget to indulge in his love of cars as he would like, he does treat himself with an abundance of original and reproduction Tiki wares. Most weekends you can find him behind the Tiki bar he built in his living room, mixing tropical refreshments for friends.
Kristin Braby
In 1976, a little treasure was brought to the town of Waukesha, Wisconsin when Kristin Braby was born. Kristin was the first child to be born to Cindy and Larry Braby, and is the oldest of five Braby children. Kristin enjoyed her childhood growing up in "bittercold" Wisconsin.
She has fond memories of her school age years. Even some memories that could get her in trouble still if they were to ever make it back to a certain librarian at Pewaukee High School. When Kristin was a senior, the school library had three large fish tanks and were in need of some animal life. The librarian said she was letting the water "steep" for a week before she put the fish in. Turns out that was just enough time for Kristin to come up with "the greatest senior prank." She had the brilliant idea to go fishing in the pond at her house and sneak the fish into the fish tanks. 15 bluegills later the tanks were full. The librarian kept saying "Wow look at these tropical fish." She even went as far as to look for the fish in an Encyclopedia and concluded these fish were Brazilian. That is when Kristin stepped in and said "I think those are bluegills. In fact, they look like the ones in my pond." In Kristin's own words "I SO WANTED TO GET CAUGHT!" To this day, Kristin believes Pewaukee's principal knew it was her, but did not do anything about it because he did not want her to be glorified anymore by having the crime broadcast throughout the school.
In 1995, Kristin’s father had a job opportunity in the mortgage business in Utah, so The Braby's packed up and migrated westward to Salt Lake. Kristin has been involved with various jobs and activities since making Utah her home. In 2000, Kristin was a server at The Lazy Moon, God rest its soul. She would serve XMission regulars such as Bret Jensen, John Webster and Pete Ashdown. After experiencing the "personality" Kristin brought with her, they encouraged her to come work at XMission and join the greatest staff on Earth. Four and a half years later, Kristin is still one of the happy voices you hear when you call XMission's accounting department.
Kristin keeps busy these days by spending time with her niece and nephews. She also loves to snowboard at Brighton. This season was cut short for her because, well… let’s just say we should all encourage her to wear a helmet from now on. She is ok but has decided to not return to the slopes until next season. During the summer, you can find the Braby family on their boat very regularly. Kristin prides herself on having excellent wakeboarding skills. She can also be found spending some of her evenings at The Gateway Mall working at the Thaifoon restaurant. When Kristin is not working diligently to help with your accounting needs, she has been known to spend ridiculous amounts of money on eBay.
Grant Sperry
Grant Sperry was born at Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City in 1963 and lived in Salt Lake until he was six years old, when his family moved to New York state. He spent the next six years exploring the New York countryside and visiting the city with his parents. He'll never forget running up to the top of the Statue of Liberty as a child and the hippies on the sidewalks of the late 60s Greenwich Village selling jewelry.
His father worked for IBM so the family relocated again in 1975 to a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. Quite a change from the north-east, Grant adjusted to the moist heat and red soil of the south just before the family moved back to Salt Lake City in 1977.
After completing high school, Grant eventually graduated from the University of Utah with degrees in English and Philosopy. He substitute taught in Santa Cruz, California for almost two years, before returning to earn a Masters degree in English at the University of Utah. Soon after completing his degree, Grant took adjunct teaching work at Salt Lake Community College for a few years, where he met his future wife, author Nicole Stansbury.
Eventually tiring of being exploited with part time pay for full time work, Grant asked friend, and XMission veteran, John Webster if he could do a part time internship at the small but growing ISP XMission in the Spring of 1996. Few had yet heard of the Internet at the time but Grant took a chance and soon became XMission's Webmaster mostly because he could write better than most geeks. His happy luck paid off and he's been there ever since. About five years ago, Grant took over as the Technical Services Manager and he hopes to spend many more years working for XMission in his current position.
Grant is still married to Nicole and they have two young and energetic boys named Otis and Jack.