Jeff Happoldt

Year Started with Spatial: 1996
Title: Principal Software Engineer

I discovered my passion for geometric modeling in the late eighties while working on a project at IBM that required the use of a high-end 2D CAD application called CADAM. Although it only lasted a few years, the experience had a significant impact on my career. Directly thereafter I joined a start-up to help develop a commercial application to serve the metal construction industry. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but the product was actually based on ACIS!  From there, fate led my family and me to Boulder Colorado, where my career at Spatial began a few short weeks after the release of ACIS 2.0. Initially my projects varied widely, from developing the installation program used for our products in the 3.x timeframe, to developing the memory manager in the 4.x timeframe, to porting the product to 64 bit architectures in the 5.x timeframe, and of course to my share of bug fixes throughout the years.  My most enduring project however, has been thread-safe ACIS.  This project has become a journey, one that now also includes the responsibility for the multiprocessing infrastructure in CGM. I spend most of my time working on these technologies, which may explain my blog posts.

On a personal note, my wife and children are my pride and joy. I also like hot summer days, Kawasaki motorcycles, and German automobiles.