MIT graduate, Internet builder, retires from 2nd career as Canyons bus driver

SANDY, Utah – Canyon School District has honored one of it’s retiring school bus drivers, for doing more than just driving students. He’s also a mentor and a teacher. Michael Andrews, who graduated from MIT and actually helped build the internet, recently received recognition from the district for his years of service.

After 10 years driving route 1232, Andrews has parked the bus and is retiring from his second career. Before taking the wheel, he worked for 45 years in the computer industry.

“We just had a lot of things to deal with back then and we’ve basically built the foundation for what became the internet,” said Andrews.

That experience and knowledge came in handy for the students enrolled in computer programming.

“Some of them would get stuck on the use of UNIX, so I would try to help them out where I could and assist them in their script development as well as some of their methods for techniques in programming in UNIX,” said Andrews.

Most of those discussions happened while Andrews drove the students to and from school, all the while staying on schedule.

“[There were] a lot of great kids, and I really enjoy being with them. That’s the best part,” said Andrews.

Andrews credited his success to a little creativity in keeping the student’s attention.

“I use the microphone on the bus, and I actually have little songs for the elementary school kids. I have Trivial Pursuit questions for the middle school kids. Every once in awhile I’ll give them a candy bar if they can answer a tough question,” he said.

He also knew to be prepared with snacks. One of his students named June would get a cookie every day because she told Andrews she was hungry.

June left Andrews a heart filled, hand written thank-you note, saying, “Thank You for being an awesome bus driver.”

Andrews said he looks forward to retirement on his computer working on genealogy.