Rod Biser:  

Rod is from Twin Falls, Idaho. He is single. His schools include Twin Falls High School. He later attended Los Medanos College (Welding, Computer Science), Chabot College (Carpentry Apprentice), Martinez Technology Education Center (A+ Hafdware, Architectural Desktop 2006), University of Houston-Downtown (Microstation V8XM). He works(ed) at 4ACAD.COM. Music Rod likes includes Rock. Books he likes include I Do Not Read. Movies he likes include Sc Fi. One of Rod's favorite quotes is:"Owell whatever". More about Rod:"For my Bio I going to paste my work History because it tell you what I done sence I was 20. When I was a carpenter, I went through the carpentry apprentice program and then when I was a journeyman carpenter, the work was seasonal. I saw that carpenters who knew how to weld got more work, so I spent 3 years going to night classes at Los Medanos to get a welding degree. I took all the classes at Los Medanos that they had in welding. When I was certified, I went to a place near my house that did high-rise dry wall and framing, lath, and made a deal with the owner that if he would keep me working year-around, I would work for a lot less. I would go down to be 50% apprentice lather and I would get to do all the welding. During that time I did the welding on the bank in Orinda, also did 1900 Broadway, and the facades and the elevator shaft there, and did all the framing of that building interior. When I was done there, I had to go to all the classes for the apprenticeship, I got a certificate for that and for the carpentry certificate, and I have. I have a welding certificate and when I was hurt on the job back then, unfortunately I was no longer able to be a carpenter. That is when I went into computers because I love to build and I like to draw so I thought that would be a good way to still be a carpenter and be able to build things and design things. Between l986 and 1988, I got a degree in computer science. That is when I found that I like computers and programming. At the same time, I was being trained in manual drafting. I saw that there was a future in CAD drafting and that is when I went to San Jose and The Copper Connection. I learned how to draw Auto-Cad and P-Cad, which is a circuit board CAD. I never got a job using that, but did teach myself some electrical circuit boarding to be able to do designs. At Copper Connections, they also taught me design and the mathematics for it. Part of the learning included all of the DOD standards, and what the standards were in CAD at that time. That was version nine. I also learned algebra, geometry, trigonometry, minor physics, and calculus there. I used that math at Contec when I was calculating the stairs and the angle of braces and the positions of boltholes. We used a lot of math at Contec. I worked for Contec Engineers – Lockheed Martin. They needed a space satellite dish and they could not detail the joints because they had no drawings, other than what was on their mainframe. They needed to figure out how to get the information from the main frame into AutoCAD version nine. I asked them to send me the 3-D co-ordinates of the satellite dish. I then used P-Line and when I got the 3-D co-ordinates, I put them into WordPerfect, into three columns. I used a WordPerfect file to input into the P-Line through a scrip-file. The scrip file drew all the lines, then I changed the UCS so that it could be flattened out and show all the struts, framing and everything in the drawing. When it was flat, the engineers could figure out how to put the braces and the hinges in so that it would unfold in space. In addition, at Contec, we built the M1Abrams Tank Assembly line and I did a lot of work with the engineers to do all the detailing of the steel. I also did all the detailing of stairs in AutoCad Version 9 and 10. At Contec we did a lot of steel detailing – mostly what the detailers did was figure out mathematically where to put the bolts and the braces and draw the end of each W-Beam because we were doing most of it by hand with the calculator. It was probably a year and a half before I bought a computer and a plotter and leased my AutoCAD, computer, and plotter to the company so I could pre-fab a lot of beam details and brace details before we calculated the holes After Contec, I started my own business in drafting (4ACAD.COM). I met Bruce Klimoski and we started Continental Training together. I was an AutoCad teacher there and ran my business on the side out of there. I worked for BART through Morrison Knutson. I built and designed part of the assembly line for the BART car construction, and I built a spider hoist to put under the trains to move the cars sideways down the assembly line, but apparently, after building that, we decided to use forklifts to push them down the line on the spider hoists. Continental Training is also, where I learned Novell Network by myself. I used the Novell Network to create a render farm for business for animators, so back then they could animate. We did many different types of drafting jobs out of there. Much of what I did was patent work for people that needed a patent. I would redraw their objects, shade and darken lines for their patent work. Some of the jobs done with my 4ACAD business included exchanging drawings from other formats and putting them into AutoCad so they could be drawn. I did the Berkeley Emergency Water system, from the tanks on the hills all the pipes needed to flow downhill. My 4ACAD company also did many odd jobs through Professional Services, Aero-Tek and other recruitment and staffing services. 4ACAD.COM worked on these piping projects as a sub-contractor. I did P & ID’s drawings for the contracts. Shell Oil, Cat Canker for Dillingham Construction ...Expand for more