After moving to the East san Francisco Bay Area at the age of 11 months, Andrew B. (“Andy”) Pippin lived there for the next seventeen years. From the time he was four, he enjoyed many competitive sports –including swimming, soccer, basketball, and track (hurdles).
In 1984, he went to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (“Cal Poly”) where he majored in Mathematics. After a couple years, he realized that Math was both really hard and wouldn’t provide many exciting career opportunities. He joined the Computer Science department and graduated from Cal Poly with two Bachelor’s Degrees, one in Mathematics (Finite Option) and a second in Computer Science. While he was there, he enjoyed his first Fraternal experience when he joined Phi Delta Theta (ΦΔΘ), finishing up as the Pledge Educator.
After college, he joined the rat race known as Silicon Valley during the “dot-com” craze – moving every other year, and changing jobs with regularity. He eventually ended up in Virginia as a traveling IT consultant. He had always wanted to follow in his parents’ footsteps and be a teacher, however after watching his dad deal with increasingly hostile teenagers, decided that teaching college was the way to go. An opportunity arose at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), so he moved there in 1999 to start a Ph.D. in Computer Science. After surviving the Y2K non-event, he vowed to “spread some roots” and stop being transient.
Although he immediately submitted an application to join Masonry, he needed to wait a year to reestablish California residency. A month after he was initiated as an Entered Apprentice Mason in September of 2000, he was on a Sunday motorcycle ride in the hills behind Santa Barbara when he took a small detour and ended up in the hospital and in rehabilitation for six months. During his youth, he learned that any athlete needs to train to get better. The memorization work required to return satisfactory proficiencies forced him to exercise his brain, and was essential in helping recover from the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
While recovering from the accident, he was blessed by forming an unbreakable bond with his future wife, Juli. Even while unconscious in the ICU, she was able to calm the thrashing around and calm him down with a simple touch on his shoulder. They were married in July 2003.
After healing (mostly) from the accident, he completed a Master’s Degree in Computer Science at UCSB with a lot of help from his wife and friends made in the Masons. After graduating in 2005, Andy fell back into the transitory nature of High Technology, working for two “start-ups”, an established company, and even another brief stint back out at UCSB. Up until last year, he was working as a “DevOp” using the knowledge of software development and systems operations to support hundreds of computers simultaneously and allowing the developers to provide quality code. Andy has since discovered that this type of work is not compatible with his brain injury and is now looking for something computer related, but not as stressful or chaotic.
After reaching the Oriental Chair in Santa Barbara Lodge, No. 192, he continued to serve the Craft in various leadership roles. To date, with the loving help and support of his “Jobie” wife Juli, he has served as Master two-and-a-half more times, High Priest eight times, Illustrious Master three times, Commander six times, Sovereign Master once, six years as a Scottish Rite officer, a Governor twice, and Prior twice. This is in addition to being a Secretary/Recorder for twenty-odd years.
At the State level, he has served as in Inspector for Grand Lodge, Royal Arch, and Commandery; served under Most Worshipful Galloway as the Grand Bible Bearer; Most Excellent Wright as the Grand Orator and Most Illustrious Price as the Grand Chaplain of the South and Most Illustrious Dann as the Grand Bible Bearer. In 2021, he was a recipient of the honor of Inspector General (Honorary) in Scottish Rite, where he continues to serve as Santa Barbara Valley’s Assistant Personal Representative to the Sovereign Grand Inspector General (“Asst. P.R. of the S.G.I.G.”) and a Director of the California Scottish Rite Foundation.
This Cryptic Journey to the Grand Oriental Chair started in 2017, when setting up for a meeting in Ventura. He received a phone call from the Department Grand Officer, (now) Most Illustrious Eduardo Estrada asking “so… what do you want to be doing for the next nine years?” That night still stands out in his memory, as well as the time after the Ice Cream Social in San Luis Obispo when Right Illustrious Companion Bob Geiger was asked to be Grand Sentinel.
Final thoughts from Andy:
As a result of helping me escape the life of a vegetable, I feel deeply indebted to Freemasonry. I have committed myself to never be “just another sideliner” in any Masonic organization I join.
Although I have almost no memory of it, I sometimes think back to those days when I was lying helpless in bed at the Rehab Institute, unable to walk to the cafeteria for coffee. Or even remember where the cafeteria was, really. It was through the kind care, love, and support of those around me, who reached out a Helping Hand to allow me to follow this journey.