Faces Behind SketchUp – Tommy Acierno

As we announced a while ago, The Daily CatchUp is starting a new series; ”Faces Behind SketchUp” about members of the Google SketchUp Team. Let’s first introduce Tommy Acierno – or as better known in the SketchUp Help Groups and on the SketchUcation Community Forums, “SketchUp Guide Tommy”. His (very) short bio can be read on the “Getting to Know the Guides” page of the SketchUp Help Groups:  “Tommy has been having fun with 3D modeling since about 1998. While working on a 3D portfolio to present to any video game company that’d be willing to look, he stumbled across an ad to provide technical support for a 3D modeling program – SketchUp. That was 2005 and Tommy hasn’t looked back since. After talking to his friends in the video game industry, he’s very happy that he decided to dedicate his days to helping people”.

TDC: Hi Tommy, could you tell us a few words about your educational background since the above “bio” doesn’t say too much about it? What is needed to become a member of the SketchUp Team?

Tommy: Haha. Well, I think my education indicates that we like a lot of diversity on the SketchUp team. I originally went to college to study physics. After a year and a half, I realized that I’m no physicist. As I was exploring other options, I enrolled in a C++ class and totally loved it – Computer Science was my next focus. After another year and a half, even though I enjoyed programming, I couldn’t get my GPA high enough to transfer to the Engineering school to finish my computer science degree, so I settled for a minor. At this point, I have been in school for three years, and not a lot to show for it. I took a year off to “find myself” and all I found was an interest in Half Life and watching the X-games. One cool April morning I woke up and said to myself, “I’m going to study film.” I still don’t know where the inspiration came from. Nonetheless, that fall I started taking classes and majored in film production. After graduation, I went to the only place to go after getting a film degree – Los Angeles, CA.

I had two friends in LA with two separate job opportunities for me – 1. logging and capturing film and 2. a build release engineer for a small software company. The film job fell through and, ironically, my first job out of college was a computer science job – go figure.

During my time in LA, I had a friend who was a 3D modeler for a video game company. That always sounded like a fun job to me, and I have experimented with 3D software in the past. My dear friend was kind enough to give me some insider tricks and tips to being a great 3D modeler in the game industry.

After nearly a year in LA, my wife and I were jealous that we had friends in Colorado with mortgage payments cheaper than our 750 sq ft apartment that shared properly lines with LAX. Although we had a lot of fun in LA, we decided to move back to Colorado in October 2005. I was on a new mission now – build a portfolio that I could use to land a job in the video game industry. Although I was confident in my slow-growing portfolio, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to look for another job. I saw a posting to provide technical support for SketchUp, a 3D modeling application. In fine print, the listing indicated that “3D modeling experience was a plus.” I thought to myself, “Hey. This sounds like a nice ‘tide-me-over’ job until I get my portfolio put together.’” Little did I know that this “whim” would change my life forever.

TDC: When we are at your bio, what “fun” was it that you were “playing around” with in the late 90′s and what kind of portfolio were you working on?

Tommy: By “fun,” I really mean “learning.” I was trying to grasp using software to create 3D shapes. I experimented some with LighWave and 3D Studio Max. I actually spent a lot of time learning how to rig models and animate as well as create 3D models. When I started working on an actual portfolio, it was focused on low poly models suitable for video games. I created various environment models like lamps, chairs, ceiling fans, and a snow blower .

TDC: Tell us, please, what exactly you do for the SketchUp Team? In your bio you mention “helping people” and what we can see, you are also very active in the SketchUp Help Groups but this doesn’t reveal too much.

Tommy: I work with a group called Consumer Operations (ConOps). In a nutshell, we’re the folks that interact with customers (directly or indirectly) when it comes to learning about Google products and solving technical problems. Our team builds and maintains Help Centers and Help Forums. A major part of our roll is to understand, listen, and research the issues that plague folks who use Google products. When we identify a big issue that’s affecting customers, we make sure that the engineering team is aware of these issues and we advocate to have these issues fixed. In addition, we also work to fight abuse in Google products.

I focus on SketchUp and 3D Warehouse, and I’m the acting team lead for the ConOps SketchUp team.

TDC: 2005 was also only a little before Google acquired SketchUp. What has changed ever since especially regarding your job?

Tommy: Haha. Almost everything about my job has changed. However, many of the great folks that were around during the “@Last days” are still here.

It was a mere 4 months after I started working for @Last Software that we were acquired. When I first started with @Last, my day consisted of answering phone calls, replying to email, and occasionally posting to the SketchUp Forum. Once SketchUp became a Google product, we knew that the number of folks using SketchUp was going to sky rocket (yet the size of the support team would remain the same . We had to be smarter about getting answers to peoples’ questions, and we needed to deliver these answers fast. We started to focus our efforts on a Help Center that would have articles that addressed as many issues that we can think to cover. We’re constantly looking for new and innovative ways to deliver answers to peoples’ questions.

TDC: Do you have any “visions” about where SketchUp might be going? I certainly do not mean to ask you to reveal any company secrets so maybe just a few words about its future in the light of your participation in the Team; your own possibilities or even maybe any thoughts about changing fields of work (well, of course let’s stay at SketchUp now).

Tommy: As I mentioned earlier, one of the main focuses of my team is to identify what customers would like to do with SketchUp and what technical glitches/limitations they’re encountering. In my vision, SketchUp will continue to evolve to meet the customers’ needs as best it can.

TDC: Now for something a bit different. It’s already well known among those enthusiastically (or commercially) building models for Google Earth that the procedure has undergone some serious “reforms” thus making the system faster and hopefully more reliable. As you frequent the forums a lot and keep in touch with the users; what’s your experience about the feedback they are giving?

Tommy: The feedback that we’ve received from folks has been fantastic. We think that being able to fully re-create our world in digital 3D is monumental goal. Everyone has the right to understand our world and we want to do our part to make that happen. The tradition of mapping our world is something that humans have done for thousands of years – we’re just applying a modern twist to the idea J.

TDC: Last year we had the chance to meet personally at the 3D BaseCamp. It was a great event and I enjoyed it a lot. I know from other participants’ feedbacks that they also felt similarly. What was the SketchUp Team’s opinion or “evaluation” of the BaseCamp? Do you think it would be worth having such events more frequently?

Tommy: If it were up to me, we’d have a 3D BaseCamp every six months. The value gained from interacting with folks face-to-face is fantastic. All to often in the digital world, it’s easy to forget that there’s a face behind that email or forum post.

TDC: In your SketchUcation Forums profile you have a picture with a cute, little kid. You apparently live in a happy family…

Tommy: I’m extremely fortunate and grateful to have a wonderful family. That cute little kid is my 2-year old son, Brayden. Not pictured is my beautiful wife Brooke, and our 1-month old son, Owen [but now see the picture above - TDC]. I also have two dogs – Callie and Snickers. They’re both Boarder Collie mixes.

TDC: Well, thank you very much, Tommy, for this interview; I hope (I’m sure) many readers will like to have some insight “behind the scenes” and how everyday work goes on in Boulder. Now please, “appoint” the next Google SketchUp Team member for us to make the interview with (but of course, we won’t reveal the name yet).

Short URL: http://news.sketchucation.com/?p=1847