The CAD Society Announces Its 2004 Award for Community

The CAD Society Announces Its 2004 Award for Community. Randall Rath, the founder of VBdesign.net, the largest independent online community supporting CAD development and customization selected for Community award.

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (PRWEB) March 14, 2004 --The CAD Society, a not-for-profit CAD industry association, today announced the winner of the 2004 CAD Society Award for Community: Randall Rath, the founder of VBdesign.net, the largest independent online community supporting CAD development and customization.

The CAD Society Award for Community is awarded each year to one individual who has distinguished themselves by improving communication and developing community within the CAD industry.

What Rath has created in VBdesign.net is truly special," said Joe Greco, president of The CAD Society. Not since the heyday of the original CompuServe AutoCAD forum has an online community attracted such a diverse and dedicated group of CAD users. But what truly distinguishes VBdesign.net is its pervasive openness and integrity, coupled with Raths genuine concern for the issues that face his members."

VBdesign.net is a teaching community, specializing in Visual Basic and VBA development for AutoCAD. Using the Socratic Method, Rath encourages his members to think like programmers. Many VBdesign.net members who started out as rank amateurs have gone one to become top-notch programmers - and have seen their careers blossom as a result.

VBdesign.net got its start nine years ago, when Rath started a small newsletter called A Code A Day." That newsletter ultimately became the website VBdesign.net, and the newsletter CAD En Coding, now distributed to thousands of people. Over the years, Raths reputation for being outspoken has occasionally earned him the ire of Autodesk, while at the same time earning him the admiration and gratitude of thousands of AutoCAD users and third-party developers.

The 2004 CAD Society Awards will be presented at a ceremony on April 3 at The Congress on the Future of Engineering Software, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

About The CAD Society
The CAD Society (www.cadsociety.org) is a not-for-profit industry association with the goal of fostering community and encouraging open communication among those who make their living within the CAD industry. The CAD Society is dedicated to improving the tools its members employ in order to get their jobs done. This is achieved by providing an open forum of communication, which helps to shine a light on the practices of industry vendors. It has been a leader in creating interoperability guidelines that encourage software vendors to develop applications that can share data openly. Non-voting membership is free for individuals.

About COFES
COFES: The Congress On the Future of Engineering Software (www.cofes.com) is a think-tank event which brings executives and visionaries from design, engineering, architectural, development and technology companies together to understand the role engineering technology will play in the future of industry. COFES is created by Cyon Research Corporation (www.cyonresearch.com.) COFES2004 is sponsored by HP, and will be held in Scottsdale Arizona, on April 1 through 4.

The CAD Society Contact:
Joe Greco
President
The CAD Society
joegreco@cadsociety.org