Welcome to Ricky Jordan’s Blog! The focus of this blog will be topics related to SolidWorks CAD software as well as the CAD community in general. My hope is to provide insight into several aspects of the SolidWorks Community which could include quick feature reviews, user group related topics, SolidWorks Solution Partner product highlights, and SolidWorks news updates.

I thought I would provide a little bit of information about myself and my experiences with SolidWorks and other CAD products. I first became a user of SolidWorks in 1997 (SolidWorks 97plus). Previously, I was using MicroStation and AutoCAD for both 2D and 3D wireframe and surface modeling. From the first moment I opened SolidWorks, I was immediately hooked and the rest as they say is history. I did take a sabbatical from SolidWorks from 1999-2001 when I took a job using Pro/ENGINEER. While the software package is powerful, its user interface at that time was NO WHERE NEAR as nice as SolidWorks. It was a great learning experience and I am glad I was able to get some exposure on “how the other guys do it”. In March of 2001, my company switched from Pro/ENGINEER to SolidWorks and I have been using it daily ever since. In May of 2002 I passed the Certified SolidWorks Professional Exam on my first try. I took another sabbatical of sorts in March of 2003 when I accepted a position as an Application Engineer for a SolidWorks reseller. After one year, I was tired of the constant traveling and really missed designing and building products, so I returned to my previous job which is the position that I hold today. In 2004 I resurrected the North Alabama SolidWorks User Group (NASWUG) in Huntsville, Alabama and am currently serving as President of the group. I currently hold the position of Senior Mechanical Design Engineer at Dynetics, Inc. in Huntsville, AL.

Thats all for now!  More to come…..