Wow! Are the 2010s really over? Where did that go? We are entering into a new decade; one that means Cimquest will be turning 30 this coming October! It seems like it all happened in a blink of an eye; however, when I think about all of the changes and technological improvements it seems like 1990 was a long time ago. In fact, here are some of the happenings in 1990 when I founded Cimquest in my basement:

  • The US began Operation Desert Shield with the US and UK sending troops to Kuwait.
  • The US enters a bad recession. (Great time to start a business….)
  • The Simpsons hit TV (sorry no streaming video services back then!)
  • Tim Berners-Lee publishes the first web page on the WWW.
  • The first in-car GPS Navigation System goes on sale from Pioneer.
  • The average cost of a new home $123,000. (Now $383,500 – over 3x)
  • Cost of a gallon of gas $1.34. (Now $2.50 – Not too bad!)
  • Cost for a high-performance CAD PC with 1280 x 1024 graphics and a 21″ Monitor $10,000
  • Microsoft Released Windows 3.0
  • The movie Total Recall is released. (the first time)
  • The cost (Tuition, Fees, Room & Board) for a 4-year private college in 1990 was $13,480 (today it is $53,980 a 4x increase!) No wonder college debt now exceeds credit card debt.

Can you imagine?

  • Paying over $40k for a workstation and 3D feature-based CAD software?
  • Struggling to machine those 3D solid/surfaces on a PC?
  • The term 3D Printing hadn’t even been coined and the first commercialized Rapid Prototyping machine had just been introduced only 3 years earlier by Chuck Hull.
  • You could buy an SLA-1 Rapid Prototyping system from 3DS for over $100K which in today’s dollars is about $200K.
  • Stratasys and EOS didn’t even have rapid prototyping machines in the market.
  • I actually had a decent amount of hair on my head!

One of the things I have noticed over the past few years is that when I see a long term customer they sometimes make a comment “I really haven’t seen you in a long time, I thought that you retired….” Let’s make something very clear, I have no plans to go anywhere….especially the “R” word. Unless I start to wear out my welcome mat at Cimquest and my team starts to feel that they would be best led by others, I plan to continue improving our company to the benefit of our customers and employees. So while our increased product line, employees, offices, and geography frequently buries me in my office or out in the road for trade shows, vendor meetings or office visits, you can still see me at most of the big shows (Atlantic Design-NYC, AMUG, IMTS, Formnext-Germany, some of our Mastercam Update Meetings, Xpand3D-2021, Eastech-2021.) So don’t hesitate to drop me a line if you are planning on attending any of these shows or just simply want to catch up on that last decade or two.

We have made it this far and it would not have been possible without our great customers and our passionate team members both present and past. I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Decade!

Rob Hassold, CEO/Founder