A few weeks ago, we embarked on a search for a community hero and we found one—Michael Bertsch. I believe he’s the perfect candidate for our next User Spotlight. So, take a moment, brew a cup of coffee, and join us in getting to know our community hero! 
What is your role?
I am working as a Senior Application & Training Engineer at the B&R Office in Heilbronn, Germany. On regular bases I hold the trainings for Automation Studio basics, Motion basics, Safety basics and sometimes also Customer specific advanced trainings. In the time remaining, I serve as an expert contact in the Motion/Robotics area for my support colleagues and our customers.
What is your area of expertise?
I cover the CNC/Robotics topics since 2010. My highlight project in this time was a pick and place machine with multi-PC Architecture and 16 robots acting together on a single line. My knowledge is focused on the motion part of a machine. You can ask me about AxesGroups, G-Code, AIL and a lot more.
What is one technical fact that you’d like to share with the community, which might not be well known?
The Community does have a private message system which can be used to share more sensitive data like e-mail addresses. You only need the rank of “Basic” in the community to use this system, and this rank can easily be acquired. If it’s granted, you can click on the icon of a person, then there’s a button “message”.
What excites/motivates you about the B&R Community?
I like to share my knowledge and helping others. I think, that’s why I also like to give trainings. In the past, I had prepared some helper PDFs or notes, and it was always a challenge to give those to the right people, and now with the Community we have an easy-to-use platform to share these kind of things and reach the desired audience.
What are your personal passions/hobbies?
Currently I’m focused to hiking, both here in the local area in Heilbronn but also in the alps. One of my favorite adventures in the past was the hiking trip “Munich-Venice”: in 28 days over the alps through many different beautiful countryside in 3 different countries. Some other hobbies are cycling, climbing (Indoor), swimming. With our team here at B&R we had recently the opportunity to do some dragon boating which is a cool team sport and makes a lot of fun, especially in the summertime when the water provides some cooling.