At the beginning of our professional careers, we always want to have a straight, already set path that we are going to follow. No one wants to divide their focus into two different directions and aim to become a jack of all trades. Despite the fact that it is very problematic and overly complicated, some people still tend to choose more than one business careers at the same time to have a diverse set of professional paths to follow later on.
Even if it may sound easy, it can sometimes lead to massive consequences with people not being proficient in either of the two fields and end up cracking under the insane pressure and boatload of hard-work. But, not all of them are like that as some end up being better than expected in all fields and benefitting massively from such extensive knowledge, Mike Mostyn is one of them.
Thomas and Miriam Mostyn welcomed Mike Mostyn into the world in Concord, New Hampshire. He relocated to the Olympic Peninsula in 1958 and originally resided in Grays Harbor, then moved to Port Angeles, and subsequently, he and his family relocated to Portland, Oregon, where he attended Benson Polytechnic and graduated with a diploma as a journeyman printer.
Mostyn’s interest in European culture was awakened when Helge Singsaas, an American Field Service Exchange Student (AFS) lived with his family for a year, in 1966. Helge Singsaas also introduced Mostyn to TASIS University, where he earned an AA of Arts in European Studies. At 1968, he returned and enrolled in the John Crawford School of Advertising at the University of Oregon.
The printing expertise of Mostyn drew Paul Brainard in. In order to pay for his undergraduate tuition, Mostyn began working as a copywriter at KZEL-FM in Eugene after completing his Bachelor of Arts in Journalism in 1975. He started his own, mainly unsuccessful advertising company called Adwater & Styr. He later worked as a junior copywriter for Gray Advertising (Los Angeles) in 1981, where he met Len and Myrna Simon, who were assisted by Mostyn finding Computer City. Mostyn was among the first ten of 1200 employees when they started the company. He worked as the Apple Product Manager there before moving on to work as the Desktop Publishing Manager and an affiliated member of the Apple Retail Council. He was appointed general manager of the Mac Store in 1990.
Mostyn developed and installed large institutional low-bandwidth video networks at Fort Lewis, Leschi Schools, Jackson Hole High School, and the Washington State Correctional Facility at Stafford Creek by integrating TCP/IP, HTML, and Internet URL protocol to control conventional video content.
In 1995, Mostyn and his wife Bobbie founded InData Group in Issaquah, Washington. With the advent of streaming on-demand technologies and the creation of Independent Publishers Group (IPG) in 1971, InData Group entered the book publishing industry and joined IPG in 2003. He started The South Sounder, a real estate company, in 2010 and became a Washington State real estate technology trainer and certified Residential Specialist in addition to being a Washington State Broker, National Association of Realtors member, and leader at Windermere Peninsula Properties in Belfair, Washington.
Bobbie and Mostyn are happily married and since 2000, they have called South Puget Sound home. Mostyn still releases The South Sounder Newsletter once a year and is an example for people who think that it is impossible to change career choices after spending a handful of years in a particular industry.