{"id":4868,"date":"2015-01-14T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T20:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.plm.automation.siemens.com\/t5\/Solid-Edge-Blog\/Interview-with-Jason-Newell-Solid-Edge-Developer-Community\/ba-p\/287970"},"modified":"2026-03-26T07:15:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:15:46","slug":"interview-with-jason-newell-solid-edge-developer-community-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/interview-with-jason-newell-solid-edge-developer-community-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Jason Newell, Solid Edge Developer Community Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JasonNewellCoffeeWithKarsten.jpg\"<\/span><\/P>
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Jason Newell is an important part of the Solid Edge community that some of you may not know. He\u2019s actually not even a Solid Edge user, having admitted to me that he\u2019d struggle to even make a box. He\u2019s a programmer who has gone the extra mile to help Solid Edge and its customers.<\/EM><\/P><\/p>\n

This is his story in his words. I think you\u2019ll find it especially inspiring, particularly his story about his high school guidance counsellor.<\/EM><\/P><\/p>\n

I got involved in Solid Edge programming in about 2000. I mentioned this a little on my opening blog on the Siemens site. Back in the day, Solid Edge programmers needed a better way to collaborate. From 2000-2004 we were working in the news groups. In late 2004, I decided to go ahead and create my website JasonNewell.net for several reasons. The domain name gave me a little self-promotion, but it also gave me the opportunity to create forums for the Solid Edge community. I ran the forums for about 8 years. I was really blown away at how successful it was, considering the Solid Edge developer community is relatively small compared to Solid Works, my website was pretty busy, and had a lot of traffic.<\/P>
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\"JasonNewellSEU14_1.jpg\"<\/span><\/P>
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I did it for two reasons, I did it for myself to get my name out there, and to get recognized and opportunities to help Solid Edge customers. For me it was a lot of work. It got to a point toward the end that I got so much spam, and I wasn\u2019t really doing a very good job. I had so much I was trying to do that keeping the site going kind of got put on the back burner. My intention when I created the community forums was never to keep it there. It was more of a proof of concept to show Siemens that the demand was there, and that they should do this for themselves. We need this. People will participate. \u201cBuild it and they will come\u201d sort of thing. After eight years, they decided to go forward with it, and I helped out. I wrote all the migration code to move the content from JasonNewell.net to the new Siemens community forum.<\/P>
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I wanted to step back and allow Siemens to take over the work of maintaining the forums for several reasons. Obviously, it reduced work for me, but I always thought that the forum service really should come from them (Siemens) rather than from me. I\u2019m just a customer through my company. Putting the Siemens and Solid Edge names on the site really carries a lot of weight.<\/P>
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\"JasonNewellSEU14_2.jpg\"<\/span><\/P><\/p>\n

Back in 2005 I was doing consulting for partners and customers of Solid Edge all over the world. Having the site was important for me as a form of advertising. In the year ST was released, I finally convinced Dan Staples to hire me as a consultant so that I could work on the SDK (software development kit) writing documentation and examples for Solid Edge partners and customers who wanted to do programming around Solid Edge. Siemens didn\u2019t really have the resources with all of the other development that was going on to handle the documentation and examples for the SDK internally, so I was like \u201cfine, let me do it\u201d, because it was work that really needed to be done. \u201cLet me help you\u201d.<\/P><\/p>\n

So I did that for several years. Eventually I got an exclusive contract so that I didn\u2019t have to go out and find other work, so now all of my consulting time is dedicated to Solid Edge. I\u2019ve worked with them long enough that they trust me, and they send partners and customers my way for one-on-one help. It\u2019s not uncommon for me to be helping Solid Edge customers and partners all over the world at 3 in morning over Skype. For people who need one-on-one help right now with programming, GTAC isn\u2019t always the best option, so that\u2019s where I sometimes get involved in the role that I\u2019m doing these days.<\/P><\/p>\n

The situation is a bit unusual because of the fact that I also have a day job, and all of this with Siemens is on the side. Companies don\u2019t want their employees off running side work for competitive advantage reasons. In 2005 I went to my boss and I convinced him that I\u2019d be able to bring back benefits to our company that I could never get just working here at my desk. We landed in the legal department to make sure that everybody understood everybody and that I understood my responsibilities and didn\u2019t do anything to screw it up.<\/P><\/p>\n

So once I got the approval on that, I\u2019ve taken off and fortunately I\u2019ve done a really good job bring back skills to the company that I wouldn\u2019t otherwise have learned.<\/P><\/p>\n

How do you keep it all going? You\u2019ve got a family, and basically two full time jobs. A lot of people have problems just holding one of those positions. How do you do it?<\/EM><\/P>
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\"JasonNewellOffice.jpg\"<\/span><\/P>
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Look at the picture of my office. I\u2019m known for Monster (energy drinks). Lots of it. The trick is \"JasonNewellOffice2.jpg\"<\/span>that I don\u2019t sleep a whole lot. I turn 40 this year, so it\u2019s catching up with me for sure. It\u2019s hard, I\u2019m not gonna lie. I don\u2019t always do a good job of balancing everything. It\u2019s difficult, but I do my best.<\/P><\/p>\n

There are a couple of reasons why I took on the second job. When my wife and I decided to start having kids – my first born was born in 2000 – I promised her that if she wanted to stay home and take care of the kids, I\u2019d take care of things financially. I made that promise to her, and I\u2019ve been able to maintain that promise for 15 years now. She\u2019s a stay-at-home mom, and we\u2019ve got 4 kids, and it has worked out really well. So that\u2019s half of it.<\/P><\/p>\n

The other half of it is hard to describe. I\u2019m not an engineer. I\u2019m IT (information technology) to the bone, but I\u2019ve always had a fascination with CAD and in particular Solid Edge. The first three years of my career I sat in the engineering building with all of the engineers, so I got to know them really well, and understand their struggles. A lot of that just kind of stuck with me I guess. I\u2019ve always been partial to Solid Edge. I saw an opportunity for someone to make a difference, and I\u2019ve always taken that to heart. I\u2019ve tried to \"JasonNewellTruck-House.jpg\"<\/span>be a community leader and help people. I enjoy it. I\u2019ve learned so much and I\u2019ve been able to travel and speak and do all sorts of things that I never would have been able to do if I hadn\u2019t taken this on.<\/P><\/p>\n

Currently, I\u2019ve embraced open source, sharing code. Pretty much everything I do now for Siemens is open source. If somebody needs help or asks a question in the forum, I can find an open source sample and share it so that everyone learns from it, not just one person. That\u2019s another reason that I wanted to work more directly with Siemens, because in the past when I was just contracting with individual companies, the things I did just benefitted that company, but they were the only one. I wanted a broader reach. I wanted to reach as many people as possible. I want to see Solid Edge succeed, and excel. The barrier to entry for partners was pretty high, and I had some experience with that with the one project in particular where we got a Rhino integration going in about 2 weeks. I was blown away by the community and the documentation for the SDK for Rhino users, and I wanted to do what I could to bring that experience to Solid Edge.<\/P><\/p>\n

In my day job, Solid Edge is maybe one percent of what I do in a given year. That has changed over my 18 years there. My title at Ditch Witch is Enterprise Applications Architect, I\u2019m one of three programmers that handle everything from SAP to online parts catalog to web programming. I work on so many things.<\/P>
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\"JasonNewellMotocross.jpg\"<\/span><\/P>
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I don\u2019t have the dirt bike any more. I sold that. One of the reasons for that was time. I just don\u2019t have much time to do that. The second is injury. I\u2019ve got basically 5 people depending on me to be healthy, and motocross is a dangerous sport. If I get hurt and unable to work, that\u2019s a problem. When I was younger, I used to race outdoor motocross. These days I\u2019m more of just a fan. I go to local races so I can keep up with the sport.<\/P><\/p>\n

I do have one kind of personal story I want to share. My high school counselor told me that I would never make it in college, and that I needed to just go get a job. I didn\u2019t do well in school. I was a football player, and I kept my grades up only enough to keep playing football. My parents were factory workers, and only one of them had a high school diploma, so college wasn\u2019t something that was really important in my family.<\/P>
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\"JasonNewellFamily.jpg\"<\/span><\/P><\/p>\n

Fortunately, I met my wife, and she was going to college, and I just kind of tagged along. So I went to college for accounting, and got into my senior year, and basically flunked out. I dropped out of school. Took a job at Ditch Witch, and eventually went back and got my MIS (master of information science) degree.<\/P><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t hold anything against my counsellor. She told me exactly what I needed to hear, it stuck with me and motivated me. In her defense, I didn\u2019t show any potential. My wife is my polar opposite. She\u2019s exactly what I need. I give her so much credit for who I am today. She\u2019s often got her foot in my rear to get out and do things and excel. She\u2019s why I am the way I am today. If I hadn\u2019t met her, I\u2019d probably still be living in my home town working at Michelin as a factory worker. I didn\u2019t have any confidence in myself.<\/P><\/p>\n

Fortunately for me, I started on the computer hardware side of things, doing support. In 1997 when I started at Ditch Witch, I\u2019d never seen a line of code in my life. In 1999, they gave me a programming aptitude test, and I scored the highest they had ever seen. My skill set is that I\u2019m very good at problem solving and I\u2019m a very logical thinker.<\/P><\/p>\n

\"JasonNewellProfile.jpg\"<\/span>I feel like I haven\u2019t worked a day in 18 years. It\u2019s fun for me. I sit down to work, and suddenly it\u2019s 5 o\u2019clock. It\u2019s time to go home. Time flies so fast. I know the other side of the coin where days drag on for people, I get that part. But I\u2019m like, I\u2019m not done yet. I\u2019m not ready to leave. I spend a ton of personal time reading and researching and keeping up with technology. Personally, it\u2019s fun for me.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Newell is an important part of the Solid Edge community that some of you may not know. He\u2019s actually not even a Solid Edge user, having admitted to me that he\u2019d struggle to even make a box. He\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61781,"featured_media":4896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[33,27],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-developer","tag-partner"],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2019\/09\/JasonNewellProfile-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61781"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4868"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4897,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868\/revisions\/4897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4868"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=4868"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=4868"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/solidedge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}