“A memoir that is as much about human frailty as it is about achievement.”
In his remarkable memoir, Allan Charles Branch invites readers on an unpredictable global journey from an ‘unremarkable’ Tasmanian boy to a revolutionary force in multiple industries. He defied the odds to innovate technologies and resurrect failing companies worldwide.
Allan’s early years in Tasmania were spent navigating government, business, and education as he sought to discover who he wasn’t. This journey led to a bold leap into entrepreneurship, where he established Tasmania’s first high-tech company. Relocating to Silicon Valley, he mingled with industry legends like Steve Wozniak and Isaac Asimov, pushing the boundaries of robotics and business. By the time he stepped away, he had possibly designed, built, and sold more intelligent robots than anyone else, redefining his identity as an inventor and entrepreneur.
But Allan’s journey didn’t end there. He embarked on a new chapter as a transformational leader, traveling the globe to rescue seemingly irredeemable companies using innovative problem-solving techniques honed through years of experience. Along the way, he not only revived businesses but also saved countless jobs and livelihoods. Through these experiences, Allan reflects on the personal toll of his relentless career, navigating the complexities of success, loneliness, and self-discovery.
Told through vivid vignettes, The Vandemonian captures Allan’s extraordinary journey of invention and transformation—revealing the man behind the robots. Blending the introspective depth of Paul Auster’s Winter Journal with the transformative arc of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, The Vandemonian is a compelling narrative of human ingenuity and perseverance.
Nels Winkles – author –
HISTORY IS PERSONAL
Allan Branch, previously identified in the Correspo as The Tasmanian Roboticist, whom I have known for nigh unto forty years has published an intriguing autobiography, The Vandemonian: Wall Street and Silicon Valley Collide. The handful of people who enjoy the mixture of comments on technology and anecdotes in the Correspo will probably like The Vandemonian.
The story is entertaining, informative, and unsettling.
Allan and I have crossed/almost crossed paths occasionally, but our backgrounds and general experience are so different that it’s surprising to find that we come to the same basic views on what’s good and important. The narrative is stuffed with stories about famous companies and people…some I have known, and some I didn’t know I knew, revealing a whole lot about how new technology actually comes into use. It isn’t an orderly process, and this isn’t an orderly book. It’s full of pain and emotion. It begins conventionally enough by recounting his stressful youth in a village in Tasmania, during which he learns that he’s smart, technically adept, and tough enough to protect himself and his siblings. His story moves on through oddly varied education and increasingly high level professional activity to his becoming a consultant, company-fixer, and constant round-the-world traveler…but that story isn’t chronologically straightforward. He keeps recalling, sometimes repetitiously, the many people who have been important to him, but the repetition is helpful, because who remembers all the names and relationships he’s talked about earlier? The book’s 280 pages are a picture to be viewed as a whole …kinda like a life. Good stuff.
I can’t remember the occasion of meeting Allan, but when he was traveling with a party of four in the States long ago, they stayed with us one night. I pressed him to demonstrate Mr. Walker, his uncommonly clever (maybe 18” high) walking robot, to our son Brock, which he did…I can see it now,walking on the counter between the kitchen and the dining room. That demo may have had some influence; Brock went on to become a figure in special effects in Hollywood. (You may remember the scene in Terminator II when Arnold slit his arm open to show the robot mechanism operating inside it; Brock had built that arm and was operating it in the scene.)
I once asked Allan if Australians have as much trouble understanding Americans as Americans have understanding Australians.
He said, “What?”
Greg Barns – The Saturday Book Club –
A lot of people born on this island end up doing remarkable things far from here. Allan Charles Branch is one such example. The Vandemonian is at once a memoir, travel and business lessons, from a man born in 1950 in the tiny Hydro Village of Waddamana, and who ended up in Silicon Valley. Readers interested in business memoirs will appreciate Branch’s insights on revitalising companies – from mining to robotics – and the lessons he learned along the way. What Branch does well is tell a decent yarn. Some of his descriptions of life in Waddamana and visits to Hobart in the 1960s will be familiar to many. If this book has a theme it is a Tasmanian’s journey through the diverse and confronting United States. Branch describes his life as like a ‘slalom with odd ski jump and side trips to the piste with the inevitable catastrophes.” This book reads that way.
Gregory Barns SC, is a prominent human rights lawyer and author. Greg is a company director and widely published political commentator regularly appearing in major newspapers. –
“Impressive. A lot of people born on this island end up doing remarkable things far from here. Allan Charles Branch is one such example. The Vandemonian is at once a memoir, travel and business lessons, from a man born in 1950 in the tiny Hydro village of Waddamana and who ended up in Silicon Valley. Readers interested in business memoirs will appreciate Branch’s insights on revitalising companies – from mining to robotics – and the lessons he learned along the way. What Branch does well is tell a decent yarn. Some of his descriptions of life in Waddamana and visits to Hobart in the 1960s will be familiar to many. If this book has a theme it is a Tasmanian’s journey through the diverse and confronting United States. Branch describes his life as like a “slalom with the odd ski jump and side trips to the piste with the inevitable catastrophes. This book reads that way.”
Robotics scientist and practitioner Robin Murphy is Raytheon Professor, Computer Science & Engineering at Texas A&M University in College station, TX. –
“The typical founder biography is often about a solitary, highly competitive genius whose affluent parents support his entry into the best schools or even the best countries to work in. If the book is an autobiography, it tries to hide that the person is someone most of us wouldn’t enjoy having over for dinner. Allan’s story of life as a successful serial entrepreneur is very different, where a rural working-class background populated with real versions of the laid-back Aussie stereotype leads to business success and a life well-lived. The book intertwines humorous self-deprecating vignettes with the lessons learned from managing, starting, and turning around companies amid the drama of Hillbilly Elegy-like brushes with family dysfunction and mental illness. Indirectly it suggests that an answer to how to get more kids into STEM may not be to sign them up for yet another after-school class or robot competition, but instead provide love, tools, and plenty of time to explore and experiment. Be prepared to take notes, you’ll want to make a playlist of all the songs and musicians he loves- or, better yet, have him over for dinner and ask him yourself.”
John Reid, author, CSIRO scientist (retired). –
“I have just finished your book – it’s a great read, thanks. Your great skill is in making things work and this, in turn, requires an intuitive grasp of ‘mechanism’ (of both robots and companies) I reckon you started off with an innate aptitude and honed it to perfection in your late teens working at the TV repair shop and the Ag. Dept. What a great education!”
Jonathan W. Jarvik is Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh PA. Jon pioneered gene tagging technology that aids in the analysis of protein synthesis and roles in molecular biology –
“I’m loving your book …. thoroughly enjoyed reading all of it …. Anyone who knows you would have the same experience I am sure. It is very much you Allan, with plenty of droll anecdotes that resonate. What it would need to give it mass appeal is more of the dark side of events – the failings of you and of others. You were judicious and didn’t give details or back-story where it might make you or someone else look or feel bad. And that is good.”
Kerrell-ann Hack, Chairperson Devonfield Enterprises, Inc. –
“I can’t remember ever enjoying a read as I did your book. Your life and career adventures are amazing.”
Glenny Clarke, coroner, veterinarian and entertainer. –
“I could not put it down.”
Jacquie Carrick Brownlow, author. –
“Just finished your book and was surprised to learn and admire your life history. I found it interesting and learnt about building a business. Your womanising was amusing to read in a book that may have been a boast or just there because of your loneliness for female company.” mile high”. You certainly have enjoyed life and made many companies very happy.”
Kim –
“I’m loving your book, it’s a fascinating read. You’ve inspired me to put together some of my stories…”
Judy Richmond, printer-publisher, union leader, disability services volunteer. –
“Thought I would touch base to let you know how much I am enjoying reading your book. I love just choosing a chapter and reading it without having to remember where I was up to as happens in most conventional books. I have found that it is very easy to read and sounds just the same as if you were talking to me.”
Esther Tony – Good Reads Group –
Your memoir, The Vandemonian: Wall Street and Silicon Valley Collide, presents a rare convergence of robotics innovation, corporate leadership, and international business strategy. The progression from Tasmania to global technology and financial centers combined with firsthand experience in smart mobile robotics and corporate turnarounds positions this work well within a readership that values entrepreneurial insight grounded in lived experience. With publication through Big Sky Publishing and distribution by Simon & Schuster, the foundation is already established for broader reader engagement.
Leslie Goldberg, New York. –
To the Randy, Intellectual Forrest Gump Vandemonian, I enjoyed reading your tomb immensely. (Even though it was quite technical.) I am a member of Resna – you would have been great designing adaptive devices for the disabled. What an exciting life you have led. I can’t wait to hear what you are up to next.”
Jacob Jonker, author and philosopher, Holland –
Fascinating, quirky and in some ways an eye opener. I like the pace, the breadth, emotional depth. Find it hard to put down.
Terry Young is a prize winning journalist with the LA Times and an avid outdoorsman –
“An interesting life can be turned into an interesting story.
Allan Branch, engineer, inventor, problem-solver, turnaround-specialist, and all-around optimist, pin-balled his way through an interesting life and has now paused long enough to share the thoughtful details in a new book.
The full title is: The Vandemonian: Wall Street and Silicon Valley Collide.
A Vandemonian is a descendent of the explorers and convicts who settled Van Diemen’s Land before it became known as Tasmania.
Allan’s is a story about growing up in the middle of nowhere but coming of age in the middle of everything.
Allan had a simple childhood, raised in small rural village in a remote part of the remote island of Tasmania, and parlayed his blend of curiosity and optimism into a notable journey.
From Waddamana, Tasmania, Allen worked his way into the go-go days of Dallas, business venturing in New York and onward to a hip, “got-this” environment in California. With a few side trips down fortuitous dusty roads in West Texas, and on choppy waters along the coast of Maine, and in historic spots in Europe, Allan takes readers around the world as he reveals the places and people who influenced his life, and became part of his interesting tale set at the front edge of the Tech Age.
His early career, spent building robots and thinking about “robot intelligence,” was fueled by a simple belief: “Yes, I can.”
Allen was able to translate that bumper sticker mantra into boardroom presentations, as he learned how far up—and sometimes down—optimism could carry him.
“While I was living that life of non-stop adventure, galavanting around the world, I was a lonely man. Always leaving somewhere, someone, going to somewhere, someone,” Allan reflects in his book.
Now that he has put his journey on pages, we can finally join him. “
Richard Rowland, Owner of Norland Robotics –
Wow, what a great read! Yes, I had to look up the word Vandemonian: “a person from Tasmania”, but, as soon as I’d read the blurb, I was hooked! Many years after the 1980’s, I learned that Australia was way ahead of America as far as robotics were concerned. Much of the book is about Allan’s work all over the world with robot companies, plus so much more. Being a robot collector, my main interest was his time at General Electric Plastics, Commodore, Denning, and Flexible Systems (Tasman Turtle), among several others. What surprised me and expanded my knowledge was Allan’s life story. All the ups and downs, hardships and fame. It was so interesting – all the famous people he worked with! The theme of the book is to take his experience of a doomed robot industry and use those successes, mistakes, and failures to rescue other industries. So, if you want a little history on 1980’s robots, some great ideas on how to make a business succeed, or a story of success of someone else’s hard life, I recommend you get a copy.