Letter from the Editor (Dr. William McGrory)
If you haven't already heard, AeroSoft is now under new ownership and management. On September 11, Bob Walters resigned as the President of AeroSoft, and sold majority interest in the company to me, Bill McGrory. One question that's often asked is, "What are Bob's plans now?". I can't tell you exactly what they are, but he recently described himself as the retired owner of an aerospace engineering firm, and to the best of my knowledge, he has no immediate interest in pursuing another business. He seems very content with enjoying life and spending time with his family. Another question that I have been asked is, "Was everyone at AeroSoft happy with this decision?". I think I can safely say that this was a very amicable transaction, and we have succeeded in meeting the goals and needs of all involved parties. Bob initially came to the decision to step down and retire completely of his own will. While I would not have expected to be in the position that I am currently in at my relatively young age, I am very excited about the opportunities for Aerosoft and no one will be leaving as a result of the change in ownership.
Everyone at AeroSoft appreciates the efforts that Bob put into the company, and the opportunities that he has provided for us. We are all sorry to see him leave as the head of AeroSoft. Of course, I can't speak for Bob, but I do have his assurance that the continued success of AeroSoft is a priority for him. What this means is that for the immediate future, Bob will be within easy communication with me, and will be providing guidance in AeroSoft's management as needed.
For those of you who may not know me, a little bit about myself. I was an undergraduate at Virginia Tech when I met Bob Walters, and he convinced me to stay at Tech and become a Ph.D. student under his direction. While in graduate school, Bob started AeroSoft. At the time, there were no full-time employees, but Dave Slack (also in the Ph.D. program under Bob's direction) and I would pick up little odd jobs at AeroSoft as work needed to be done. Both Dave and I received Ph.D.'s in January, 1991 and immediately went to work for AeroSoft as its first two full-time employees.
While in graduate school, my research involved unstructured methods for flow solvers and grid generators. Dave's research included development of some of the fundamental algorithms found in GASP v1. Aerosoft's first product, GASP v2, was written by Dave and me during our first year at AeroSoft. We have both been heavily involved in the development of GASP and I have also played a major role in the creation of our unstructured product, GUST. Since 1996, I have been the Chief Scientist at AeroSoft and have been responsible for the technical direction for the company. However, in the early years when manpower was short, I was also involved with the sales and marketing and other aspects of running a small business. Under the new organizational structure, Dave will hold the elected position of Vice President.
I think that you will find Bob and I have similar visions for AeroSoft. My goal continues to be to provide the highest quality state-of-the-art numerical analysis software for the engineering community. I hope to decrease the time in implementing the latest algorithms, while maintaining our high standards of quality. In the next few years, Aerosoft will extend its CFD modeling capabilities to incompressible flow as well as time-dependent simulations with moving geometries. You will find more details about our latest innovations in other articles in this newsletter.
If you have any questions about the changes taking place at AeroSoft or any questions about our products, please don't hesitate to contact me or any of our support staff here at AeroSoft.
AeroSoft, Inc.
1872 Pratt Drive, Suite 1275
Blacksburg, VA 24060
(540) 557-1900
Fax (540) 557-1919
Email questions@aerosft.com