Shortly after graduating from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a B.S.E.E., Mr. Iest joined TRW Systems in Redondo Beach, California, where he gained extensive experience in designing Attitude Control Systems for spacecraft. He also designed the control system for a remote-controlled unmanned submarine and a precision pointing control system for a satellite. After leaving TRW, Mr. Iest joined a start-up company, called General Systems International (GSI), in which he was responsible for the design of a 16 bit mini computer and supporting memories. This computer was used with the first 8 inch floppy disk drives.

After completing his work at GSI, he joined MSI DATA CORP in Costa Mesa, California, where he was program manager on a financial data entry terminal. During this same time period, Mr. Iest was gaining experience as a part-time consultant in designing items such as medical equipment, memory systems, microprocessor products, linear and circular interpolators of numeric controlled milling machine, a motor control system for UCLA Neurological Research Center, and a stepper motor controller used in stereotaxy research. The product developed at UCLA was later used by NASA to study motion sickness of astronauts.

In August of 1976, Mr. Iest left MSI Data to start a full time electronic consulting business. Amest Corporation now has a full time staff of managers, engineers, designers and assembly personnel to develop prototype or production products. Approximately 10 years ago, Mr. Iest decided to manufacture some of its products, and today, approximately half of Amest's business is generated from these products.