RIP, Lars Selen

It's with heavy hearts that we at SmartCAMcnc share the news that Lars Anton Selen passed away May 18, 2017, at age 82.

When we endeavored to bring SmartCAM back from "mothballing", Lars was our biggest supporter. For 12½ years, Malibi Southwest was the only Authorized SmartCAM Training Center, headed by its one employee: Lars. We are very thankful for his dedication to serving the SmartCAM user-base, but even more for his dear friendship to us. 

To say "he will be missed" would be a gross understatement. He was a great man, father and spouse, truly one of a kind, and we will never forget him. 

Tailwinds, my friend.

Hugh Caldwell, VP Sales & Marketing
SmartCAMcnc

From Brad Hoitt, SmartCAM account manager, and friend of Lars: 


My Buddy Lars

Within a week of working at SmartCAMcnc I had a reason to call Lars, and immediately considered him my friend, and we quickly became very close friends, the kind with whom I could share some of my deepest secrets. 

From the beginning I strongly identified with Lars’ sense of humor. He allowed me to do impersonations of his Swedish accent that made him laugh (a little). While doing an impersonation of him on one occasion he stopped me and said: “Brad, let me stop you. To understand why I talk this way, you must first realize that I was born in Chicago, raised in Sweden, re-introduced to English in Ireland, lived in Canada for too long, introduced to English in Scotland, before moving to the States for good.” Perfect.

Lars didn’t just have answer for everything, he usually had a quotable answer. I’d like nothing more than to share his quotes with you (I wrote most of them down), but most are a little too colorful for this venue. Here is one I like: "You can always spot the Canadian: he's the one that says 'Thank You!' to the ATM."

A few other interesting things about my buddy Lars:

• Lars had all the time and respect in the world for people he felt were grateful
• Lars had zero patience for folks that were ungrateful
• Lars might have been the only US Citizen from Sweden that was a card carrying member of the NRA…that never owned a gun.
• Did I mention he had a saying for everything?

A quick story about Lars that makes me smile every time I think about it.

Years ago a woman named Sally called me. She managed a small stamping outfit in Portland; she couldn’t get her communication set up. Her company had an old version of SmartCAM (without a maintenance agreement). Eventually I admitted that I was no good at that sort of thing and hinted that I was more helpful to people that are doing business with us. Almost as an afterthought, I gave her Lars’ phone number, said goodbye and hung up. 

Sally called Lars and they had a brief conversation. The next morning UPS dropped a box off on Sally’s desk. Inside there was a funky handmade cable with hand written instructions. 

Sally plugged in that cable, followed the directions and the communication was up and running. Lars had made the cable himself, mailed it to her and charged her nothing. That morning, Sally called to thank me, even though I really hadn’t done anything. 

I called Lars and like a master to his pupil he explained “Sally is one in a million. She cares about her community, she’s active in the PTA for her kid, and she helps a lot of other kids, too. We must take good care of people like Sally.”

Lars showed me how to pay attention to the people like Sally. Lars made me a better man. 

I miss my buddy Lars. 

Brad Hoitt