Brief history of the author
First things first. Please understand, that I don’t want to produce a lengthy resume that outlines every detail of my life. My intention is only to provide a rough picture of my career as a representation of my experiences. I will only mention what I think is of interest and not bore you with kindergarten, elementary school, etc. So here’s my life in short extracts:
My first important step in my career was that I have learned the profession of a technical assistant for computer science in Bremen. Since I’ve always had fun with electronics and computers, this training was a great experience for me. The scope of the training included general electronics, digital electronics, computer technology, programming, mathematics, some more technical and non-technical subjects and English as a foreign language.
Then I served in the army in a special unit for electronic warfare, where, thanks to my previous education in electronics, I was trained on radar detection devices.
Physics has always been my favorite subject as long as I can remember, so it was clear that I would pursue this as my academic carreer. On the recommendation of one of my best friends (Thank you, Gerhold) I looked at the “University of Applied Sciences – Hochschule Emden/Leer” and was thrilled.. small but nice! I signed up and studied applied physics there. My majors were laser technology and nuclear technology and at the end I wrote my thesis in the field of accelerator physics at the German Electron Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg. During my studies I also had a chance to spend a semester abroad, which I completed in the United States (Madison, Wisconsin) at the Synchrotron Radiation Center, which is a part of the University of Wisconsin.
For a few years I worked in the field of accelerator physics. I did for example work for the DESY and its HASYLAB and through the University of Emden for the Research Center in Karlsruhe on the development of the ANKA synchrotron radiation source.
Thanks to another good friend (Thanks, Christian!) I was then recruited by National Instruments (NI) on the basis of my knowledge of the graphical programming environment LabVIEW. National Instruments is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and one of its branches is located in Munich, where I worked as an Application Engineer for two years. My role there included technical support for customers on the NI software products LabVIEW, LabWindows CVI, and the associated NI driver software and the various data acquisition and instrumentation hardware from NI.
During my two years in Munich I also had the opportunity to write a book together with the technical and marketing director of NI-Munich, Rahman Jamal. The book covers the basics of the graphical programming environment LabVIEW.
After two years in Munich I went to the headquarters of NI in Austin, Texas, to work on the localization of the graphical programming environment LabVIEW. And I remained in Austin for the next 12 years to collect experience as a localization engineer and learned about technology and techniques of Localization, Internaltionalisierung and Globalization. Furthermore, I have gained experience as a team leader of the German localization group and developed internally used software for localization, with the exception of the CAT tool (CAT = Computer Aided Translation) for which we used the professional system SDL TRADOS.
After 12 years of localization at NI, I then started my own business as a “Localization Consultant” and am now located in Tokyo, Japan. From there, I now offer my services as an independent consultant for Localization, Internationalization and Globalization.