Tom 4

744 Reputation

9 Badges

20 years, 102 days

My title is Chief Evangelist for Maplesoft. I interpret that as “the guy who’s been around forever”. I started my professional Maplesoft career in 1989 as a contractor trying to earn money to feed my grad student habits, like eating and visiting my parents. Before that I was introduced to what was then referred to as the Maple programming language and to my surprise, Maple immediately helped me figure things out in my courses and more importantly it made me look smarter in front of potential grad supervisors. That’s how the love affair began.

Since then I’ve held various senior positions including Vice President of Marketing and Market Development. I’ve witnessed the transformation of this company from a start-up doing something strange called “computer algebra” to a well-recognized, leading solutions company with a growing and ever diversifying user community. I’m even more thrilled at the fact that so much of our new achievements are in the world of engineering modeling and simulation which was my specialization in University.

I did my degrees at the University of Waterloo. My Bachelor and Master’s degrees were in Systems Design Engineering and my PhD in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in surface modeling for CAD systems. Along the way, I dabbled in control systems, physical systems modeling, and computer-assisted education. I still stay connected to the academic world through my position as Adjunct Professor in Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, and as a member of the Board of Governors, Renison College affiliated with the University of Waterloo.

I was born in Seoul South Korea but raised in Toronto, Canada. I moved to Waterloo, Canada to attend university and never left. I tell the Maplesoft people that it’s because of the company but it’s because I met my wonderful wife Dr. Sharon here :-)

MaplePrimes Activity


These are Posts that have been published by Tom 4

Two very significant things happened last week. First, my son Eric turned 13. Second, I got a new car. These two milestones merged into a singularly great long weekend as Eric and did our very first father-son roadtrip to the great city of Cleveland. The car was the first new car my family had bought in about eight years, and as hard as I tried to maintain meaningful conversation with Eric through the many hours, I have to admit that my attention was frequently diverted to the car … thoughts of “hey … that’s a nice ride”, “so that’s what sport suspension feels like”, or “Yes Eric, that’s a very good question on the American election but … I wonder what that button does”.

As Maplesoft’s Chief Evangelist, I get countless opportunities to present the joys of Maple and our other products to people. Often, I’m the model corporate citizen and make sure I stay true to all of the key messaging that our Marketing folks force us to repeat … but if you actually experience one of my live presentations, you’ll notice that I often sneak in a whole slew of personal commentary and anecdotes on my 20 or so years with this technology … often stories that never make it to our official scripts. So as my inaugural blog post, I thought I’d start with what turns my crank when I have to present our products to the world. Here’s my Top 10 list of things that still impresses me to no end …

Hello all ... FYI, we will be creating new forums specifically for Q&A geared towards undergraduate students. Our goal is to have a section of the forums that are more suited to the kinds of issues that younger users who have neither the computing or math experience, may have. We'll be uploading the test groups this week and the forums should be live by the end of the week. We'll also do subsequent refinements in the autumn once Will gets back. Tom 4.
Hello all ... FYI, our site master Will Spaetzel is getting married this weekend. Please join me in congratulating him and his new bride Laura-Lee on their new life together! Many happy wishes to you two! The bad news is, during his absence (for a couple of weeks), some technical issues with this site may be a bit slower in resolving. We have back-up editors for Will but Will has special talents that are hard to match. Thanks for your patience. Tom 4.
Hello all. At the company, we've recently had discussions on the future of printed manuals. Many software companies are moving towards CD-only packaging for many reasons. Today, if you buy the full professional version of Maple, you get all manuals printed. I just wanted to get a sense of your feelings on paper vs. electronic manuals. Thanks. T4.
First 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Last Page 9 of 29