All in the Family

A self-made man

Carey taught himself CAD programming while he was working at Lasercomb America. "I used to go in on the weekends figuring stuff out, and went from tinkering with existing programs to writing my own simple ones," he said.

He admits to not knowing a single known programming language, but he says he uses a CAD-specific macro language to write the applications. CimPACK, one the company's flagship products, is a software package used by diemakers to design and create dies, and is also used by package designers. Since the first CimPACK was sold in May 1991, Carey said more than 3,300 licenses of the CAD software have been sold worldwide.