A Ten Year Celebration in Austin, Texas

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CTSUGLogo More than 70 people came out last Thursday night to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the Central Texas SolidWorks User Group.  It was CTSUG's largest meeting ever, and featured a visit from Rich Welch, SolidWorks VP of Customer Service and Christine Washburn, SolidWorks VP of Marketing.

Bill Casnovsky, who has dutifully led the group for more than four years now, kicked off the meeting by recognizing four CTSUG members who had been at the very first meeting – Rodel Bautista, Rick DuRapau, Jay Jones, and Jim Lowery.

Rich and Christine followed with a lively Q & A session that had the attendees jumping.  There were some issues that were raised and some debate, but all-in-all in was a great discussion.  Rex Jackson had the line of the night when he closed the conversation by explaining;

We ain't switchin', we're just bitchin'

I got my first chance this year to rollout my "What's REALLY New in SolidWorks" presentation, and I think it went very well.  Release time is my second favorite time of the year – a close second to SolidWorks World season.  The crowd was very energetic and engaged, and we had a blast with some of the newer, lesser known functionality released in SolidWorks 2010.

There are only a handfull of SolidWorks User groups that have reached the age of ten.  It's a great accomplishment, and a testament to the group leadcership and the group members.  I thanked Bill after the meeting for taking such good care of "my baby", and inquired about the future.  He thought for a moment, then said…

"I'm having a lot of fun, I think I'll keep going for a while"

Thanks Bill.

Richard Doyle

Richard Doyle

My official title is Senior User Advocacy & SolidWorks User Groups - but most people just call me "The User Group Guy". I've been a SolidWorks user since 1997, and was one of the founding members of the SWUGN Committee. Since starting the Central Texas SolidWorks User Group in 1999, my career path has led me to DS SolidWorks and a dream job supporting the SolidWorks User Group Network worldwide.
Richard Doyle

@https://twitter.com/swugn

Richard Doyle