In hopes of adding to your SAS Global Forum experience, we've kicked off a SAS presenters series. Here, we’ve asked some of the SAS presenters five questions to learn more about what makes them tick, why they chose to present and what they hoped you would take away from the presentation. Take a look at Ron Statt’s answers.

Ron Statt, Manager, Product Development

Ron, what do you do to relax?
In the past 11 years, I’ve owned four houses and am now looking for number five. I enjoy the challenge of finding a house, living in it, updating or improving it, and then moving on to the next challenge. That’s probably why I enjoy project management, too.

This is my first SAS Global Forum; have you ever been before?
I’ve been three times; this will be No. 4. My most memorable experience was being able to introduce a brand new offering (SAS® OnDemand for Academics) in Orlando. There was a lot of excitement from potential users.

Why did you and Tom Edds, a software developer at SAS, write Using SAS® OnDemand for Academics to Meet Changing Student Needs, Reduce Software Access Barriers, and Grow SAS Skills?
We wanted academic customers to know that there is an easy, cost-effective way to access and use SAS software for teaching purposes – even if a university does not have a lot of IT staff. We also wanted our academic customers to know that our hosted solution supports distance learners, is available through the Internet, and enables instructors to focus more on teaching than on software installation and support.

During your presentation, what were the most important highlights or questions that you hoped to cover?
There were a few key areas we wanted to cover. First, we wanted to honestly identify both the benefits and limitations of the software so that people could make an informed usage choice. We also wanted to show what it was like to actually use the software and, finally, we wanted to talk about future directions and how users could provide us with feedback so we can enhance our offering.