25 Years – A Quarter Century as an Autodesker

On January 19th, 1998, I was a Mechanical Designer in Portland, Oregon, and just joined Autodesk and moved to the SF Bay area, thinking sure, I could work on the AutoCAD and Beta teams for a couple of years, then move back to the customer side. Autodesk was such a good fit for my passion for design, customers, colleagues, and technology Autodesk that it is 25 years since joining, and I am still excited. I'm so grateful to all my colleagues, mentors, leadership, customers, partners, and family as I could not have done this without everyone..

Highlights of the 25 years:

• Working with the best customers and colleagues.
• Beta management for most products for 17+years and building the Feedback Community, growing betas and the community from 300 to 300,000+ customers.
• Being on AutoCAD Product Team
• Evangelist/Technologist 20+ years and speaking at events around the world.
• Social media and starting blogs and several customer communities. My blog here Between the Liners is still going since 2003.
• Starting the Autodesk Labs
• Starting the AU 5k event
• Being the unofficial Autodesk Historian, including developing the first comprehensive map of AutoCAD Commands and System Variables.
• Technologist in the Autodesk Office of the CTO/Research.
• Being a member of the official Autodesk SCUBA team in the Maritime Research and Development team
• A licensed commercial UAS pilot.
• A mentor for FIRST Robotics high school teams using Fusion 360
• Towne Storage renovation and LiDAR scanning that became the Autodesk Portland office.
• Over 30 Autodesk University events around the world and getting high ratings.
• Reality capture projects like the USS Arizona 3D scan underwater, scanning Delicate Arch in Utah, scanning coral reefs in Kalaupapa Hawaii, human ancestor fossils in Kenya, the interior and exterior of the Glen Canyon Dam, projects with the Smithsonian Institute, Department of Marine Biology for Mexico, and a book chapter on 3D scanning of bamboo architecture in Bali.
• Getting Jay Leno’s team at Big Dog Garage onto AutoCAD, then Inventor, and then Fusion 360.
• The final STS-133 Space Shuttle Launch social media group.
• Getting to know so many customers and colleagues that I consider friends and family.
• Getting to know 3 Autodesk CEOs.

  And so much more…

  A bunch of photos are below in no order of importance. It was fun looking back.

An exhibit in the Autodesk SF Gallery