Champions!

National Instruments has inducted two British engineers into the LabVIEW Champions program for their outstanding contributions to the global LabVIEW community. Chris Roebuck and Steve Watts have been recognised as LabVIEW Champions to thank them for their time and effort in helping others in the LabVIEW community.

Steve Watts and Chris Roebuck

Chris Roebuck specialises in test and measurement for RF devices, spacecraft command and control, and data management. His passion for visual programming began with LabVIEW 3.1 in 1996 and he has continued to use LabVIEW throughout his career at Filtronic Broadband and EADS Astrium.

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Last year he joined NI Alliance Partner, SSBV, as the Software Technical Specialist, responsible for the architectural design and implementation of large scale test and measurement solutions for the space industry. Roebuck has regularly presented at NI UK events and conferences including NIDays, Automated Test Summits and customer advisory boards. He is an active member of the NI community and will chair the 2013 Certified LabVIEW Architect Summit in Paris, alongside Jeff Kodosky, the “Father of LabVIEW”.

“As an enthusiastic LabVIEW developer of many years I am thrilled that NI has bestowed upon me the honour of being inducted into the LabVIEW Champions program” said Chris Roebuck. “I look forward to continuing to support the worldwide LabVIEW community and increasing proficiency levels, along with promoting wider adoption of LabVIEW.”

Steve Watts has been writing industrial software for more than 25 years and began programming with LabVIEW in 1998. He is the co-owner of SSDC Ltd (Structured Software Design Consultants) a supplier of custom designed functional test, laboratory management, industrial control, logging and database systems to aerospace, military, academic research, automotive and manufacturing industries. As well as playing a significant role in the UK LabVIEW Community, Watts chaired the inaugural European CLA Summit and runs the LabVIEW User Group CSLUG (Central South LabVIEW User Group). His book, entitled “A Software Engineering Approach to LabVIEW” has achieved worldwide success and is highly regarded as a seminal text for serious LabVIEW developers.

“I’m delighted to receive this award” said Watts. “I'm very keen on understanding how design decisions impact the final deliverable code, and this can only be done by open discussion with peers. The input of the LabVIEW community is central to this.”

With just 55 LabVIEW Champions around the world and 15 in Europe, Britain now boasts 3 members of this exclusive club, with Roebuck and Watts joining Dr Richard Thomas from Product Technology Partners, who was inducted last year.

“The prestigious LabVIEW Champion title exists as a way to validate and thank outstanding advocates for their participation and willingness to help others in our user community as well as provide them with the technical resources to help others in the future” said Mike Bailey, LabVIEW Marketing Manager, NI UK & Ireland. “Both Chris and Steve have been consistently exceptional participants in the global LabVIEW community. They are known worldwide for their technical expertise and approachability and are truly shining examples to our community.”