Provide a quick, creative biography in 140 characters or less.
More bio**2014 EE Annual Expert Awards**
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Software: Most Points, Most Assist Points, Most Answered
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BASIC was my first computer language. And even though I would pick up COBOL, Fortran, Pascal, and even some assemblers, I always returned to BASIC. My first professional job involved writing code using InfoBasic on a Pr1me computer (I may be dating myself, there).
I got my start writing macros for Lotus 1-2-3 and was hooked immediately by the possibilities of automating spreadsheet work. It would be a few years, however, before I got my hands on Excel 97 and began coding VBA.
Ever since, I've made a profession out of automating and integrating the Microsoft Office Suite of products. I've tackled some interesting technical requests:
* a custom Outlook email form and automated Excel report that retrieves the form data weekly
* a time reporting system for over 900 employees using Excel and SQLServer
* a standardized Word template for engineering documents with automated layout solutions
* an award-winning, multi-variable pricing system for resellers of over 3,000 products
But, I get my biggest reward out of saving people time. I routinely am asked to automate manual tasks and very often, can cut the processing time by more than 75%. It's great when a user - who may spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon manually creating an Excel workbook due Monday morning - only has to call up a single macro and create the same report in seconds. Which, of course, means that they can do it on Monday while they're settling in at the office.
And while I enjoy helping other people here at EE, I have to say that I've learned more from the participation here than in any other environment. The questions have pushed my skills further also, and I get a kick out of discovering a solution to a problem I didn't know I had! :-)
-Glenn