Throughout the year, we spend a lot of time with members of the SWUG network and at SWUG meetings. 3DEXPERIENCE World is a chance for all of the community to come together in one place and it’s one of our favourite parts of the event.
SWUGN Choice Awards at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2020
On Wednesday, February 12th during the General Session at 3DEXPERIENCE World, there was a recurring theme of community.
During the session, several members of the SOLIDWORKS community were recognized for their contributions to the SOLIDWORKS community and to the SOLIDWORKS User Group Network.
The SWUGN Choice Awards were presented by Rachel York, Community and User Advocacy Senior Manager at SOLIDWORKS.
Innovator of the Year
This award recognizes the most innovative SOLIDWORKS user group leader and highlights their new ideas and achievements.
This award is given to someone who hosted unique meetings, enabled up and coming presenters and shared their knowledge with other group leaders.
The winner of this award was Eric Spurgeon, South Central Kansas SWUG. Eric has been very active and engaged in developing his meetings to host a variety of topics and breakout sessions so people can choose from multiple subject areas that they wish to learn.
Eric’s focus is on creating meetings that add value to the users and their careers to help them move forward. Users can learn from each other and the content at the meetings is unique to the industries in Wichita.
Eric has spent time listening to the users who attend his meetings and the great ideas they have.
Eric is a new leader who started last year so it’s great to see how he is already bringing new ideas to the SWUGN community.
Congratulations Eric – looking forward to seeing what your meetings will bring this year!
Meetup of the Year
This was an award to celebrate the biggest, best SOLIDWORKS meetup of the year. Consideration for this award was given to attendance, venue, quality of the presentations and member, vendor and reseller participation.
The winner of this award was the Central Texas SWUG Meeting hosted in Austin, Texas. This group has been around for over 20 years. The leader of this group is Steve Calvert. Steve organizes at least 4 meetings a year.
One of these meetings combines SOLIDWORKS and hockey, with the meeting hosted at a Texas Stars hockey game. Users are treated to a great dinner with a technical presentation. After this, the group joins together for an evening of hockey.
Even the mascot for Texas Stars, Ringo the Ringtail is a SOLIDWORKS User.
DriveWorks has been a sponsor for this meeting and Heather attended their very first one – it was an awesome time and such a treat for the user group.
Congratulations to this group and also to Steve Calvery – go Stars!
Community Champion Award
This award celebrates a member of the SOLIDWORKS community who best demonstrates extraordinary commitment to others in the community, either across the year or a lifetime.
This award is not limited to a user group leader. It recognizes someone that brings our community together in unexpected ways and is a long-term advocate of the entire SOLIDWORKS community, including the SOLIDWORKS User Group Network.
We are so proud to announce that the winner of this award was Heather Hasz, Brand and Community Ambassador at DriveWorks!
Before joining DriveWorks, Heather worked for the SOLIDWORKS Partner Team where she supported members of the SOLIDWORKS community, helping them gain access and support to develop their technology solutions with SOLIDWORKS.
Heather joined the DriveWorks Team in March 2016. Heather’s role is to support the SOLIDWORKS Community and SOLIDWORKS User Group leaders to help make their meetings successful.
We love being part of the SOLIDWORKS community and want to help it thrive.
Our DriveWorksXpress Training and Certification Program helps SOLIDWORKS students and users learn new skills. Heather has been promoting the certification throughout the SOLIDWORKS community.
Heather has also worked on our newly launched FIRST® Robotics Competition Team Sponsorship Program to inspire the next generation of SOLIDWORKS users and support STEM.
You will often find Heather chatting with anyone about anything – mostly dogs, SOLIDWORKS and DriveWorks – and she is always willing to lend a hand to assist anyone in need of support or otherwise be successful.
DriveWorks Team Supporting Heather
Some of the DriveWorks Team were in the audience during the General Session when Heather received her award, the rest of us at DriveWorks HQ watched it together and cheered her on from the UK!
Heather is a great community champion and is known and loved by all the leaders, who are now great friends of Heather’s and of DriveWorks. It was great to hear the SWUGN Community make a lot of noise as Heather received her award, showing their appreciation.
We’re proud to have Heather on our team, representing us within the SOLIDWORKS community and we look forward to continuing to work with a fantastic group of people.
Want to find out more about how DriveWorks can support your SOLIDWORKS User Group? Get in touch with us to find out more!
