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Meet Kurt Bremser: Yoda for New SAS Users
BeverlyBrown
Community Manager

SAS Support Communities Manager Chris Hemedinger (left) snaps a selfie with Kurt and Dagmar Bremser at SAS Global Forum 2019.SAS Support Communities Manager Chris Hemedinger (left) snaps a selfie with Kurt and Dagmar Bremser at SAS Global Forum 2019.Had an ah-ha moment while visiting the New SAS User Community? Good chance @Kurt_Bremser's the reason. As we mark that popular forum's first anniversary on Customer Experience Day, it's fitting to celebrate his many contributions there.

 

Participating in 16% of conversations is amazing enough. (That board has 2,600+ topics, y'all!) 53% of its solved topics evidence Kurt's influence as a commenter.

 

His article, Maxims of Maximally Efficient SAS Programmers, is the 13th-most read article in the SAS Communities Library and leads all 1,000+ articles in likes (130), replies (51) and number of users commenting (28.) You'd be wise to tag or bookmark it. No worries if you forget. Just scroll to the bottom of one of his community comments; it's linked in his signature.

 

Concierge Award recipient

 

Kurt leads in number of New User board visits and is second only to the legendary @Reeza in authoring solutions (answers that original posters have marked solved.) He, Reeza, @PaigeMiller@novinosrin, and @ballardw recently earned the Concierge Award, a community badge for extraordinary effort helping new SAS users hit their stride with SAS software.

 

I thought you all might enjoy getting better acquainted with Kurt and was thrilled when he agreed to be interviewed. See the Q&A below. I'm sad he's planning to retire in 2022 and bet many of you are too. Want to see a similar profile of other helpful community members? PM me their community name.

 

Where are you from originally and where do you live now?

 

I was born in Vienna, Austria and lived there for a long time, until we moved our family to Neulengbach in Lower Austria (an American would consider that a suburb of Vienna. Smiley Wink)

 

How did you become a SAS user?

 

When I was "drafted" into the data warehousing group in our company, we were just starting out using SAS. That was back in 1998. Probably the best thing that happened to me, business-wise. Today I am the one mainly responsible for the data warehouse (admin and developer), but my successor is already taking loads off my back, as I will retire in 2022.

 

How do you spend your days as a SAS user?

 

Kurt BremserKurt BremserCheck if our server is up and healthy. Read my inbox and deal with what comes in. Work on requests and demands assigned to me. Repeatedly check what's coming on the SAS Communities, and participating if I can be of help. And learn if it's something of interest that I didn't know.

 

Tell us about the most exciting project you've worked on. What was it and why was it exciting for you?

 

Basically, that was right at the start. Since I was (more or less) the only one with UNIX experience, I managed the transition of our data warehouse from the mainframe to UNIX. First SINIX, then AIX. Introduced Enterprise Guide to our users while doing that. Getting away from having to share computing power with all the "production" jobs and returning to my most beloved operating system was a real thrill. In the end, we increased end user's productivity by orders of magnitude.

 

What is your favorite tip for success using SAS?

 

Use it. Play around with it. See if you can make things better (easier to use, run faster, use less resources, whatever). Make mistakes. Learn from all that. And read my Maxims (shameless plug.) And attend my upcoming presentation at SAS Global Forum 2020 (even more shameless plug.)

 

What would you like to learn?

 

Anything that comes my way. Right now, this means parts of the famous guitar solo from Hotel California (see next answer).

 

What do you do for fun?

 

I play the guitar (mainly electric.) Have been playing it since age 13, and right now I am in two bands, one that I have been with for 30+ years (and more than 40 years with the drummer), and another I set up with my wife and oldest daughter. Country, R&R, some Rock (see above question). Until a few years ago, I also was a game official for American Football over here. Biggest game that I was in was the final of Eurobowl III.

 

Your turn!

 

What's the best advice you've gotten from Kurt or anyone in the New SAS User Community? Share about it in the comments.

 

10 Comments
JuanS_OCS
Amethyst | Level 16

@Kurt_Bremser you are indeed one of the lead colleagues in this Community. Always helpful and always challenging even the brightest minds in the SAS Communities. I just would like to show my gratitude with a big Thank You. 

 

Juan

novinosrin
Tourmaline | Level 20

Good afternoon Sir @Kurt_Bremser . Afternoon in Austria? Very well deserved and my hearty congratulations. Almost 15,000 posts is not a joke and that level of continued desire is extremely noteworthy & amazing. I personally have my own favorite 20 whom I dearly follow and learn, and you are in my favorite list. @Reeza  knows that I am pretty good in taking notes and likewise my notes have been filled with your super solutions too. The most special solution that I personally loved is your innovative application of call execute that is something wouldn't cross my mind for a given scenario and that often leaves in awe to wonder why I didn't think of it. Kudos!

 

PS This is the way it goes, PGStats makes me cry, Reeza's encouragement is source of hope, Tom and Art the sage who protect SAS's sanctity, Hashman and John King are personal gurus, Reinhard(aka kolmogorov champion of sorts ever to admire), Xia Keshan loved by my family.  And of course, You, SASKiwi, Patrick matter in everything right from admin to solutions to advice to business, general humor etc etc etc. 

 

Kurt's greatest one IMHO-"Sometimes you have to let bad practices choke on themselves. I call it "Sabotage by Following the Rules" . Can't get more eloquent than that.

SASKiwi
PROC Star

@KurtBremser - It was a great pleasure to meet you at SGF 2019 and to see your presentation on Maxims

 

As the author of many legendary posts, along with a wicked sense of humour I hope you continue to contribute for a long time to come!

Ksharp
Super User

And Thank @Kurt_Bremser  help me present a paper at SGF2019 , maybe next year SGF2020. I appreciated .

TomKari
Onyx | Level 15

Yo @Kurt_Bremser! Very well-deserved recognition. It's rare that I check out a discussion, and he's not already there. And, darn it, there's never anything to add to his answers!

 

Looking forward to continuing to learn from Kurt for many, many years!

 

Tom

FreelanceReinh
Jade | Level 19

I'm always impressed by @Kurt_Bremser's broad IT knowledge (OS, networks, databases, admin tools, etc.), which adds to his SAS expertise, his excellent English language skills and his perseverance in long discussions. Needless to say, he's also contributing to the German subforum CoDe SAS. Greatly appreciated.

 

So, thank you very much, @Kurt_Bremser! Way to go, keep up the good work!

Kurt_Bremser
Super User

I am deeply honored by all the accolades I receive here, and I promise to keep on doing my best.

 

The above photograph tells a story: after arriving in Dallas on Saturday, we went for a stroll through downtown Dallas on Sunday morning, and - lo and behold! - as soon as we leave the hotel, who comes rolling up on an E-scooter? It's @ChrisHemedinger, chief administrator of the SAS Communities, whom I only knew from posts and pictures. It set the tone for the conference: almost everywhere I went, I ran into people I know from here: @SASKiwi, @LinusH, @Rick_SAS, @AnnaBrown, and lots of others. Thanks to all for a great three days!

 

ChrisNZ
Tourmaline | Level 20

Kudos @Kurt_Bremser . A well deserved accolade!

DrAbhijeetSafai
Lapis Lazuli | Level 10

Yes, he is absolutely wonderful! One of the datasets was not opening and it was because of dynamic format used. He advised to use options nofmterr and that has worked wonders and I can open the dataset. He has helped me on other occasions as well. Many thanks to him for being there. 😊

 

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely,

 

- Dr. Abhijeet Safai

Kurt_Bremser
Super User

I see I need to post some updates to this.

 

By 2022-04-01 I have retired from paid work (I'm well into my sixties now). As you all know, SASGF 2020 went down the COVID drain, so that presentation was shelved for later. As it turned out, I would do it in September 2022 in San Francisco at WUSS. Which also meant we could attend Seahawks (my wife's favorite team) @ 49ers (my team) at Levi's stadium the following Sunday. An absolute blast, I can tell you.

 

The family band has expanded, now all our daughters play with us. We have keyboards, bass (electric and double), guitars, ukulele, drums, flute, all kinds of percussion in the family, and everybody sings, at least background. And the oldest daughter's husband is our sound engineer.