Jon Wittwer, PhD
Jon Wittwer started Vertex42 in 2003 while working on a PhD in mechanical engineering. After finishing his degree, he worked for Sandia National Laboratories where he kept Vertex42.com running on the side. In 2008, he left the labs to work on Vertex42 full time. In addition to his expertise with Excel, Dr. Wittwer is respected in multiple fields for his development of financial tools such as the Debt Reduction Calculator, project management tools like the Gantt Chart Template, statistical tools such as the Monte Carlo Simulator, and a large collection of business productivity and time management tools.
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My Favorite Spreadsheets
I created this calculator in 2007 based on a request from a user to simulate the snowball debt payoff method. It has become one of my most well-known financial tools, downloaded over 1.5 million times. If each of those downloads helped a person save just $100, that is a lot of total interest savings.
This template is one of my favorites because it represents how you can manipulate chart tools to do things that were not originally intended. It may seem obvious now, and there may be many youtube videos showing how to create timelines in Excel using similar techniques. However, this was quite new back in 2005, and it is still relevant and useful today.
Besides calendars, this spreadsheet is the most popular template on vertex42.com, with over 3 million downloads (first published in 2006). Excel might be used more for project management than any other single purpose. Kudos to Henry Gantt for inventing such an amazing visualization method. See my video series to learn how to create a Gantt chart in Excel from scratch.
Monte Carlo Simulation Template
I created this spreadsheet on the 10-year anniversary of writing my first article on Monte Carlo Simulation. The spreadsheet will run a basic Monte Carlo Simulation using a model you have already created in some other Excel workbook. This is one of the few spreadsheets on Vertex42.com that uses VBA, but the VBA is mostly just a recalculation loop - the rest is done with Excel formulas and charts.
The money manager template was a work-in-progress for quite a few years as I used it in place of other financial software for both my personal and business finances. It has continued to evolve based on feedback from users, and it is still a free download!
Education and Experience
Publications on Google Scholar
PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University
Jon is the author or co-author of the spreadsheet templates found on Vertex42.com.
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