As a recognition granted by Microsoft, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are tech experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They possess a profound understanding of Microsoft products and services and can bring together diverse platforms, solutions, and products to solve real-life problems. MVPs constitute a global community of over 4,000 technical experts and leaders across 90 countries and regions, and are characterized by their passion, community spirit, and thirst for knowledge. Above all and on top of their incredible technical abilities, MVPs set themselves apart by always helping others. The contributions MVPs make to their community range from speaking engagements and social media posts to writing books and helping others in online communities.

How Do You Become an MVP?

There is no official standard or list of things to do to become an MVP. The best MVPs simply love what they do. Whether someone is a great speaker, has a talent in blogging, leads a top technical community, is a leading GitHub or StackOverflow contributor, they may have what it takes to earn an MVP from Microsoft.

What are the Benefits of a Microsoft MVP?

Some of the main benefits of Microsoft MVP include early access to new Microsoft products, direct communication channels with Microsoft product teams, and an annual invitation to the Global MVP Summit, an exclusive yearly event hosted in Microsoft’s global headquarters in Redmond, Washington. MVPs also have a very close working relationship with the local Microsoft teams in their area, who are there to empower MVPs to address opportunities in the local ecosystem.

Microsoft MVP Bob Umlas Will be Joining Our Team at Excel & Access!

At Excel & Access, we are incredibly proud to announce that we will be onboarding the renowned Bob Umlas. Mr. Umlas worked for a major tax and accounting firm, using Microsoft Excel® eight hours a day, writing custom applications for staff and clients from 1998 to 2018.

Mr. Umlas has been using Excel since version 0.99 (on the Macintosh)! He was a contributing editor to Inside Microsoft Excel for many years, a magazine devoted exclusively to Microsoft Excel and published by The Cobb Group and later Ziff-Davis. At the time, most issues contained either an article by Mr. Umlas on using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) or some tip or technique on using Excel. He has had over 300 articles published on subjects ranging from beginner to advanced macros, as well as tips, shortcuts, and general techniques using virtually all aspects of Excel.

Mr. Umlas has been voted an MVP by Microsoft each year since 1993 for his contributions to the various online forums about Excel and is known worldwide for his Excel contributions. As an MVP, he meets yearly with his fellow MVPs at Microsoft’s headquarters, where he has access to the product developers. He has been a beta tester for new versions of Excel since version 1.5 and was asked by Microsoft for his input for newer versions of Excel. In 1995 he led a session called “Maximizing Excel Development Using Array Formulas” at Microsoft’s TechEd Conference in New Orleans, and he led a session called “Tips and Tricks” at a Microsoft convention in New York City. He also led two Excel sessions (Array Formulas, Tips & Tricks) at the Advisor’s Developer Conference in San Francisco in February 1998.

He has led five sessions at an Excel User Conference in Atlantic City on Tips & Tricks, Array formulas, VBA, Formulas, and Userforms, and he has led about seven or eight of these user conferences since 2005.

He is also the author of This isn’t Excel, it’s Magic! which is available from www.iil.com/publishing as well as from Amazon. (There are two versions of this book: One for Excel 2003, and one for Excel 2007). Another book, Excel Outside the Box is available from www.MrExcel.com and is for the highly advanced Excel user. Lastly, another book, More Excel Outside the Box is also available from www.MrExcel.com.

He has co-authored several chapters in many books on Excel and has done the technical editing for four new books for Excel 2019, as well as about twelve books for prior versions of Excel. He even has a white paper on array formulas published at http://www.emailoffice.com/excel/arrays-bobumlas.html.

Mr. Umlas used to co-lead the New York PC User’s group on Excel every month for about ten years. He started leading this group again in 2018. He has been teaching Excel to individuals and corporations for several years. Currently, Mr. Umlas leads a 12-hour class in Excel called Excel in Depth and a 6-hour class on VBA (see http://www.iil.com, click on “Virtual Classroom,” then click on Virtual Classroom Schedule, choose Microsoft® Excel in Depth, click “See your selection,” click “Course Outline”).

Last, but not least, at the end of the 2013 world Excel Modeloff competition on Dec. 8th, 2013, this was noted:

“The winners were announced at Microsoft’s Manhattan offices Sunday afternoon. … (T)eams of finalists competed in four rounds of Excel Golf, trying to get the shortest formula to solve four particular problems. … I’ll note that Excel MVP Bob Umlas was in the audience and twice offered formulas that were shorter than the winning formula.”

To learn more about Bob Umlas, don’t hesitate to contact us.