Well, there is no "us" really.

SynoptiXL has been a "hobby" of me, myself and I, over the course of 10-15 years by now. Often with pauses lasting multiple years because I got tired of it, because there was no inspiration for new features or simply because I didn't get around to work on it besides my main job as freelance HV/MV project engineer and later on project manager.

Roughly speaking, my "career" can be split in 3 big parts. I started out at a Belgian transformer manufacturer, then I worked for quite a long time in Belgian onshore HV/MV substations. And when I turned 40 I decided I wanted to stay in renewable energy projects for as long as I could. 

And by now I've been deeply involved in the design, construction and project management of 6 offshore substations in a few different European countries.

Along the way, I did SCADA work, both for industrial and TSO clients. Much of the inspiration and many of the breakthroughs for SynoptiXL came from this SCADA work.

It all started quite a while ago when I myself needed a tool to visualize, test and discuss with a well known Belgian steel plant client quite complex electrical interlocks implemented in their MV network and its new part we were then constructing. The logical interlock equations for that installation were so complex that it simply got too difficult to imagine all their consequences without visualizing them in some way or other. And voila, the idea for the very rudimentary first version of SynoptiXL was born. 

Even in my first years as a young electrical engineer I was toying around with Excel automation. It started with the old macro language XLM. Over the years that changed into VBA and by now I guess I can call myself a proper and proficient Excel geek.

Regards, Bart Verbeeck