At Pacific Life, every employee’s journey is unique—and inspiring. In this interview, we meet Brian Huynh, whose career path and personal passions are deeply connected to the Omaha office—a place that has fostered professional growth, close relationships, and a true sense of belonging.
 

When did you start working at Pacific Life, and what has your career path looked like?

I initially joined Pacific Life as an actuarial intern in product design in the Summer of 2019 as one of only two Omaha-based interns. I met many talented people over the summer and loved learning about what makes Omaha a great place to live, having grown up in Wyoming one state over. It was convincing enough because I now call the land of the Cornhuskers home. What surprised me the most about my internship was learning how the knowledge I gained from the actuarial exams actually applied in the workplace.

After my internship, I accepted a full-time offer on the Life GAAP Valuation team, then rotated through reinsurance, model stewardship, fixed annuities, and product design/pricing. In my final rotation on the Life Product Design/Pricing team, I worked on innovative products like Broad Market Term and Admiral 2. I learned that I had more fun being on the side of the table that gets to cook up innovative features that other teams implement into their work processes.

After earning my FSA, I returned to the Life GAAP Valuation team as a Senior Actuary. My journey has come full circle, and I truly enjoy being a valuation actuary—what many consider the “fun actuary” in-house.
 

What accomplishments or milestones are you most proud of in your career?

The career milestone I look back upon most fondly is achieving my ASA. Up until that point, I was still getting the hang of what actuarial work was like on the job, balancing life and exams, and generally still learning how to be an adult post-college. The external reality was that after getting my ASA, not much changed for me. I was still learning quite a bit on the job and now had to somehow balance studying for the even harder FSA exams.

But internally, I felt like a lot has changed. Now, I’m recognized as a professional that must satisfy continuing education credits and adhere to a code of conduct and standards of practice. There’s a hefty weight that comes behind the designation, and it was something I had always known, but it didn’t feel real until I got it. To me, it reflected my history of disciplined work and signaled of my future potential. The amount of dopamine I got from putting ASA in my email signature for the first time was unreal. That was the moment I really felt like I had “made it” and, dare I say, the moment that changed everything.

Yet some things haven’t changed, like my sense of pride and duty to the profession and to continual learning on the job.
 

How has working in Pacific Life's Omaha office influenced your career journey?

The Omaha office has been central to my career. What I really appreciate about working here is how close I am with my coworkers. I’ve built close bonds with colleagues and watched our team grow from eight actuaries to over twenty, and still growing! The people here motivate me to come to work and make the office feel like home. We celebrate milestones together like getting married and buying our first homes, and support each other’s career achievements.

I love my job because it’s exciting and I feel adequately challenged and intellectually stimulated, but one huge reason I feel motivated to come into office is to see the lovely faces of my coworkers. I never realized how important it would be to enjoy the people I work with in order to feel fulfilled at work until I joined Pacific Life’s Omaha office. And while today, we all work in different areas and teams in the company, we are bonded by our love of corn and beef-cabbage stuffed baguettes. My desk may have moved around a lot over the years, but my heart has not.
 

What do you enjoy most about working at Pacific Life?

Unsurprisingly, my favorite part about working at Pacific Life is its work culture. When you research Pacific Life on social media platforms, the most common praise that Pacific Life gets is for our work culture, and I really don’t think that’s by coincidence at all. I love having coffee chats with the people I work around, to relax momentarily and learn about their lives. Like I said, I look forward to coming into the Omaha office every day because of the people.

My second favorite part of working here is the career development. Having worked here for over six years, I’ve met many talented and hardworking people who have so much vested interest in my development. Every manager I’ve ever worked with urged me to use the study hours granted to me for my actuarial exams to keep on progressing towards FSA, even at times when there was pressing work that needed to be done. And they all have encouraged me to go out of my way to take on positions and responsibilities that will help me develop professionally, even when it meant leaving their team.