BreakPoint

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Who has inspired You?

I have had the opportunity to reflect on my personal sources of inspiration in the last few days.   Those heroes that each of us have personally known who shape not only who we are but, provide a standard that we measure ourselves by.

 

I would introduce you today to my greatest mentor and an enthusiastic fan of mine.   The Amazing Mrs. Bohrer.   (As far as the linked tribute goes, I could not have said it better myself) 

 

I have often been surprised when meeting new clients,  coworkers, vendors and colleagues  that they knew my mother either personally or by reputation through someone else she had helped or inspired. 


"Should be" isn't "Is" -Jay
Message 1 of 5
(3,156 Views)

Sorry to hear of your loss.

 

I lost both of my parents in 2010.

 

I gave a eulogy at my father's funeral describing him as the good Samaritan. He couldn't see a person in need and not do whatever was in his power to help.

 

He served 23 years in the air force and then became a lifetime member of the local VFC. He was transported to the cemetery in a fire truck and then an air force color guard took over and gave him a 21 gun salute.

 

He taught us to give our all to help others in need.

 

Ben

Retired Senior Automation Systems Architect with Data Science Automation LabVIEW Champion Knight of NI and Prepper LinkedIn Profile YouTube Channel
Message 2 of 5
(3,121 Views)

I have been "off the air" for a bit, didn't see your post. I really feel your loss, loosing my father at the end of November 2020. He was a role model for me in many ways, and I like to brag about him teaching a computer skills class to "old people" when he, in his 90's, was older than most of them!  Cherish the memory of you mom, and all the others we may have lost, and recognize that a bit of them lives on in us.

Putnam
Certified LabVIEW Developer

Senior Test Engineer North Shore Technology, Inc.
Currently using LV 2012-LabVIEW 2018, RT8.5


LabVIEW Champion



Message 3 of 5
(3,042 Views)

For me, it was Dr. Vesselin "Vesko" Dimitrov. I worked with him as his student closely for 3 years, and he hired me fulltime as a research assistant after graduation. 

 

He's the one who taught me LabVIEW to start with... we'd sit down in a giant Faraday cage next to a pulse power accelerator and pair program for a few hours at a time, trying to get some signal processing to work right, or integrating something he'd written in Fortran. We both programmed LabVIEW like text programmers:  stacked sequence structures, with sequence[0] being "Initialize Variables", overuse of local variables, etc. Towards the end of my time working with him, I'd started to use a simple producer/consumer architecture, and he let me spend a couple of months rearchitecting a multichannel analyzer program we'd written together.

 

After undergrad the plan was for me to to grad school at Notre Dame with his friend as my advisor on paper, but in reality still working with Vesko on the research we were doing.  Unfortunately a week or so before I was set to take the Physics GRE, Vesko went home for lunch and didn't come back. He'd had a heart attack while home and passed away there.

 

I ended up never taking my GRE and getting a job in aerospace instead. Vesko had been such a close mentor for so long, not only teaching me programming but helping me through my physics degree by answering any random question (homework or not) that I had.  And teaching me several important life lessons along the way. 

 

I think had he not passed away my life would be very different than it is right now. I'd probably be working as a post doc somewhere and making about half what I am currently 🙂

 

Sorry, long rant. It's been a couple of years since I thought about all of that in detail. I owe a lot of where I am right now to Vesko, even though it isn't where we'd planned.

 

(By the way, I leave the "Dr" honorary off of his name because he didn't really like being called Dr.  He used to say that the people who most strongly demanded the title were often those who least deserved it)

Message 4 of 5
(2,837 Views)

@BowenM wrote:

 

(By the way, I leave the "Dr" honorary off of his name because he didn't really like being called Dr.  He used to say that the people who most strongly demanded the title were often those who least deserved it)


I like him already.

 

For me personally, there are different sources of inspiration, professional and personal.

 

This forum has been my inspiration, my coach and my teacher for so many years I practically owe my current LabVIEW career to it. Not only the breadth and depth of knowledge but the camaraderie and willingness to just try to be nice to each other is amazing. I'm not going to start mentioning individual people, because I'd be terrified of leaving someone out and that would really bug me.

 

Personally, I've been changed by many different people over the years. All of whom I was drawn to because of their reputation for immaculate integrity and honesty. Having such role models being successful in different ways and seeing how they combined their success with their integrity really nourished me in early life. It taught me not to give up on what I think is right or important just to try to get ahead when I felt stuck. Of course the forum here kind of also falls into this category.  My dad was a fisherman and I used to be on the trawler with him every summer while at school (3-5 days at sea at a time - hard work!) and some of the discussions about life, geography, history and so on that I had with the crews of his trawlers really opened my eyes to the fact that education and intelligence, knowledge and school are independent variables. I met some of the most wise and well-read people outside of school or university and that certainly influenced me to a very large degree.

 

One thing I've noticed recently is that when I put all of the people I've looked up to over the years in one group, patterns emerge. Why I have continually been drawn to these kinds of people is a topic in itself but for everyone who ever thinks about their inspirations, the people you let inspire you is also a reflection of yourself, your inherent values and view of the world. Whether that's you, your environment, parents or whatever, never forget that it's a mirror to yourself. In any teachable situation in life or academia, it always takes two. If you can pick out key elements of what ties them all together, make sure to cultivate that in yourself, really hold onto that in yourself and maybe some day the tables will be turned and the favor can be returned to another. You never know when your words or actions may inspire someone.

0 Kudos
Message 5 of 5
(2,177 Views)