Our History

1992: Windows on the World

Having a template in place for the annual general meeting, Jay Reinhardt and his administration began refining the Bylaws, smoothing out the annual general meeting and finding new ways for the membership to get benefit out of the organization throughout the year. The newsletter (which continues to be published today) took a huge leap in its effort to present new information to the membership directly from Autodesk, provide information on all the current local user groups, alert members to AutoCAD-related events held around the country and put into place voting procedures that made it possible for the organization to stay consistent from Board to Board. NAAUG began taking a serious interest in ways it could help local user groups to succeed, and to invite speakers for the annual meeting who would really impress, inform and entertain the membership.

I remember the stickiest issue dealt with that year was discussion and treatment of other CAD programs in the organization. Many AutoCAD users had no choice but to work with two or more CAD programs determined by clients (such as AutoCAD and Microstation from Intergraph). Several members wanted to establish a SIG (special interest group) for those AutoCAD users who had to use other CAD software in conjunction with AutoCAD. Autodesk did not take kindly to this and the idea was scratched.

What remains most memorable though about the 1993 annual meeting was the fact that John Forbes and Autodesk introduced to the AutoCAD user community the first version of AutoCAD for Windows. For most of us, this was the first exposure to Windows we had ever had, and the ramifications of a GUI were overwhelming. Discussions in the evenings were intense and heated as people began reevaluating their current operating systems and versions of AutoCAD. This was also the first year that Autodesk really pumped out the raffle prizes...people won copies of AutoCAD, 3D Studio and other software and hardware that had the attendees drooling. Basket lunches were provided for everyone with great tin drum music to boot, and a few informative speeches were made by some of the lunch sponsors, and a fun "casino night" was held outside following the first day's meeting. This created opportunities again for users to relax and meet other users who used the software in similar ways.

The officers elected for the next year were:

President: Phil Krieker / Looking Glass Microproducts
President-Elect: LeAnne Thurmond / LCT Associates
Secretary: Don Brown / LandCADD International
Treasurer: Thomas Short / Command Train, Inc.
LUG Representative: Dave Espinosa-Aguilar / Arizona CADD Systems Inc.
AEC SIG Chair: Jeff Hester / Fluor Daniel
Mechanical SIG Chair: Paul Jackson / Honeywell, Inc.
GIS SIG Chair: Doyle Garrard / Utah Power
Senior Autodesk Rep: John Forbes / Autodesk
Manager User Group Services: Kelly Daniels / Autodesk