Ray Almgren Joins White House Press Secretary, Emmy-Winning Filmmaker and Astronaut in 2005 Awards
NEWS RELEASE – May 24, 2005 – National Instruments Vice President of Product Marketing and Academic Relations Ray Almgren recently was named one of the University of Texas at Austin’s most outstanding young alumni by the Texas Exes, the university’s alumni association. Almgren, honored as an Outstanding Young Texas Ex for his work in encouraging young students to pursue engineering and science, received his award during the recent UT commencement ceremony, along with co-honorees White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Emmy-winning filmmaker Shola Lynch and NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson.
“It is an honor to be named among such prestigious peers, and to have the University of Texas celebrate our efforts in creating a renewed excitement about technology and learning for the next generation of engineers and scientists,” said Almgren.
“Whether it’s by helping young children create robots with LEGO building bricks, supporting secondary school and collegiate-level academic reform or creating high-tech tools for the classroom, we recognize that education is the backbone of our business and we do everything possible to make it more interactive, exciting and fun for tomorrow’s leaders.”The Texas Exes inaugurated the Outstanding Young Texas Ex award in 1980 to recognize young alumni who are distinguished in their fields and have demonstrated a continuing interest in the University of Texas and the Texas Exes. A recipient must be younger than 40 on January 1 of the year they are nominated.
Past recipients include entrepreneur Michael Dell, Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden, athletes Earl Campbell and Roger Clemens, broadcast journalist Catherine Crier and politicians Henry Bonilla and Ron Kirk. The Texas Exes chose Almgren as a 2005 honoree, noting his work in pioneering the National Instruments RoboLab program and the NI Foundation. “Ray has positively impacted the future of thousands of Texas students, students that will soon be designing the engineering applications and working in the laboratories of the future,” said Texas Exes Executive Director Jim Boon. “He is not only helping spread the word that math and science can be fun and exciting, but he is working diligently to ensure that new educational technology is available to every classroom and to every student.
This is, indeed, and outstanding accomplishment.”The National Instruments RoboLab program is the company’s largest K-12 academic initiative and has benefited more than 500,000 students worldwide and more than 4,500 in Central Texas. A joint initiative with Tufts University, NI and LEGO Educational Division, RoboLab was designed to help teachers interactively demonstrate engineering concepts in a fun environment to students of all ages. With software based on the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment, students create working robots that perform real-world tasks or creatively solve hypothetical problems of the future. More than 500 Central Texas students participated in this year’s RoboLab Mania! event held at NI headquarters in Austin.
About National Instruments
National Instruments is a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation – a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PCI, USB and Ethernet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,500 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. In 2004, the company sold products to more than 25,000 companies in 90 countries.
For the past six years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.
For more information
, Contact National Instruments or visit their web site at www.ni.com/robolab .