At 14, many kids deliver newspapers, bag groceries or mow lawns. But not Eric Anderson, Chief Technical Officer of Novell. As a young teen living in Southeast Asia where his father worked for the CIA, Anderson’s first job was to fly in unmarked planes throughout the country of Laos, interviewing local villagers about communist activity in the region.

While the experience was certainly a unique adventure for Anderson, it also helped lay a foundation of interest in and compassion for people.

“What I learned [was that] people were risking their lives,” he says. “It was known that after we would leave [they might be shot for talking to us]. I gained a love for people because I realized the extent of what people would do for their villages or their countries.”

When asked where he grew up, Anderson is hard-pressed to name a city, much less a state or even a country. He is originally from Hawaii, but grew up predominantly in Thailand, Laos and Canada. Besides giving him a love of people, this world-wide upbringing also gave Anderson a deep appreciation for other cultures, and a great love of languages. He currently speaks six languages, and hopes to learn Chinese and Swedish one day.

“I became very aware of cultures, and people and cultures, and in fact, [that awareness] served me very well later on in Novell,” he says. “I moved to Germany to work with SUSE (which Novell acquired in 2003) and easily assimilated with the German culture.” His skills and abilities gained through years of living abroad allowed a relatively smooth transition to what might have otherwise been a difficult acquisition.

Anderson’s path to Novell began after he completed a business management degree at BYU, when he hired on with AMDEK, known for its development of computer color monitors. In fact, his name is on the original patents for color monitors for his work there, his “first touch with stardom,” he explains. He also worked for Compaq Computer Corporation where he was involved in the development of the first i386-based computers: SmartStart and Compaq Insight Manager; Wyse Technologies, where he helped develop the popular WY-60 terminal; and BMC Software where he helped invent PATROL application monitoring software. He then returned to Utah, and eventually went to work for a startup company. It was then that several people recommended him to Novell.

“When Novell first called me, my reaction was: ‘Novell? Why would I want to go there?’ I never wanted to go there. I was jaded by the reputation (the company had at the time),” he recalls. But after meeting with company officials, his initial reactions did a 180.

“After I went there and talked to them, I realized that Novell has simply brilliant people that know technology at a level beyond anything I had seen at any other company.”

When Anderson joined Novell in 2003 as the director of engineering, the company was trying to “find itself,” he says. “They were playing with the notion of Linux, and I was very keen about it. If Novell wanted to do that, I felt I had something to contribute.” He saw two key components that the company had going for it: a rich set of people, and a rich set of technologies. Combining the two became his primary objective then, and has continued to guide his efforts ever since.

In the next five years, Anderson’s vision (a Service Driven Data Center) is to provide customers with a self-scaling, pay-per-use system based on who you are, where you are, and when you want the service. Part of the vision includes the tools and technology people need to solve their business IT problems while bringing IT and the business together.

“The problem is that [these customers] are swimming in a sea of parts from different vendors and don’t know how to integrate those parts together, nor do they know how to elevate IT to the business level,” he says. “I want to prove that they can put these IT parts together, and do in a way that is flexible, reduces risk and complexity, and is cost effective. I want to see us grow the SRM (Novell Systems and Resource Management) business into a billion dollar business. From a UtahValley perspective, that’s a breakout company.”

Besides continuing to build on the success Novell has developed in recent years, Anderson is also passionate about spreading the word about the company. While it may have languished somewhat for a period of time, he feels that it has regained its relevance.

“It’s one of the best kept secrets,” he says. “There is a lot about Novell to like [and] I think its greatest days are still ahead of it. It is growing up and maturing into a strong enterprise. In one sense, I wish I could travel around the valley and let people know what an incredible company Novell is in terms of its people.”

From those early days flying across the country of Laos, to his present association with colleagues and business partners at Novell, this love for people has been a constant source of motivation.

“I’ve just grown this love for people and what they’re about,” he says. “The thing I’m most proud is that I’ve been able to bring teams of people in very different locations to work together. To this day, people [and what they do] fascinate me. It’s the greatness of people, the greatness of what they can achieve.”