2020 Is Here, Time for Some Changes – Part 2 the IMAGINiT Years

I believe the saying goes all good things must come to an end, and on January 17th, 2020 that is exactly what happened.

Last week was my first week as the Technical Solutions Lead at BIM Track. As with most first weeks, it was a whirlwind of learning new systems, workflows and meeting new people. I am excited about this new role and was humbled by all the social media love on Twitter and Linkedin after the announcement of my joining BIM Track.

However, this post is not about my new role, but instead about my time at IMAGINiT. It was August 2012 when I started at IMAGINiT, and back then I had no idea what I would learn or how much that nearly 8-year long run would change my career.

The first thing I will say is I worked with so many great people during my time at IMAGINiT, I truly made some friendships that will last a lifetime! IMAGINiT was also where I spoke for the first time as an AECO professional, and I had no idea how much it would terrify me while becoming one of my favorite things to do. If it wasn’t for the support and encouragement I always received from my boss and his boss I don’t think I would have made it past my first user group. But I did and was able to speak all around the world, at some of the industry’s biggest conferences like AU and BILT. It was not only the speaking at the industry conferences, but it was also being allowed to attend sessions, explore new technologies, and most of all the networking with the best of the best in the AECO industry.

I also got to travel many places I never thought I would as part of my time with IMAGINiT, of course not all the places where glamorous…can you say Cold Lake Alberta in March! A couple of my favourite trips include San Fransico to visit Autodesk Pier 9, with a little time to be a tourist at Alcatraz. I also got to visit the new Autodesk facility in Boston with the awesome maker space and robots just before the grand opening. I even got to spend two weeks in Iqaluit Nunavut doing training, my first time north of the tree line!

I also learned so much while delivering training sessions as part of my time at IMAGINiT, it really is not just the students that learn in these sessions! It was kind of fitting that my last training session for IMAGINiT was a Fundamentals of Revit class, which was also the first class I taught during my time as a Continuing Education teacher for SAIT. In fact, it was 10 years to the week between the 2 sessions which I thought was kind of cool!

In closing, I would just like to thank everyone that I worked with at IMAGINiT over the past 7 1/2 years for everything! I will miss you all, in particular, my BSD team and my Calgary office mates!

Now is time to embrace change with my new role at BIM Track, and see what other new challenges are on the horizon for 2020…

Until next time,