I encountered him in a talk at Siggraph 2001. He is a charismatic guy and used a lot of creative examples of interface design. In particular he showed http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammassalik_wooden_maps

It is sad that Maya is now an Autodesk product: Autodesk is such a square, white bread, corporate outfit. The interface to their flagship AutoCAD is ludicrously clunky and antique, while something like Revit (another acquisition) is clever but really dumbed-down and limited in scope. Oh well.