tux.org: Board of Directors Candidates 2005


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TUX.ORG, INC. Board of Directors (BoD) Candidate Biographies/Summaries Summaries of biographies submitted by persons interested in being considered as candidates for the 2007 Tux.Org, Inc. Board of Directors elections. Applicants listed in alphabetical order.
*Candidate --- Nick Brenckle aka* Nick Danger**
Nick is the co-founder of SCOSUG, the Southern CT Open Source User Group. He has been involved in OpenSource for all my computing career, writing free code for the Apple II in the days of modems and BBS'. His first experience with Linux was in 1992 when he purchased all 80+ floppies of Soft Landing Systems Linux. When starting his first job he used Yggdrasil and then RedHat back when releases were named after holidays. During the years he has tried almost every flavor of Linux and nix systems both open and closed source. In his present job for a nationwide ISP, he uses Linux and Open Source everywhere possible, mixing and matching as needed to get the best mix of features and performance. He has worked with web, dns, email and snmp management systems and coded in perl, php, python and shell. Nick states "I am a firm believer in the power of open source, and in working hard for the greater good. I'm a hacker at heart, often taking things apart to 'make them better.'" He lived in Northern Virginia from 2003-2005, during which time I staffed and helped to organize the Tux.Org table at FOSE '04-'06. He moved back to Connecticut in early 2006. He is a current member of USENIX, SAGE, SCOSUG and NoVALUG. [NOTE from ed: Yes, but will Nick share with us the secret of the SCOSUG squirrel...*?]
Candidate --- Timothy Ferro
B.S. in Information Sciences and Technology '04 The Pennsylvania State University Data Systems Analysts, Inc. Fairfax, VA June 2004 - Present Oracle DBA on Windows Red Hat Linux Software Engineer Web Developer Open Source Advocate Talked about this during a speech at Penn State Started an open source project in 2006 (Anchuan.Org) LISA '06 Conference volunteer for Tux.Org Linux Distro Enthusiast (Fedora Core is my favorite) NOVA-LUG member KDE contributor (helped with wiki for 4.0) I firmly believe in the power of open source. I feel that more should be done to help promote its growth.
Candidate --- Benjy Messner
Benjy, a junior at DC's Georgetown Day School, has been involved with Linux and open source software since the fifth grade, when he saved up allowance money for ten weeks to buy LinuxPPC for his iBook, because he only had dial-up and couldn't download it. Since then, he's attended DCLUG meetings (first one in 2002), used six different distributions in production environments, started an ill-fated project to port Linux to the danger Hiptop (and failed when it turned out that the GPRS APIs redefined the term "closed source"), programmed in shell, Perl, and PHP (including three serious projects, all Creative Commonsed), pushed his school to create a separate Linux ll Creative Commonsed), pushed his school to create a separate Linux lab running nothing but open source software, and installed Boot Camp on his MacBook Pro so he can dual-boot to Debian. He'd like to see Tux.org do more outreach and education of both companies and, most importantly, of kids in school: his theory being that if you get them as kids, you've got 'em for life. He'd also like to get very-low- income DCPS students $100 laptops, powered of course by only open source software, once they become widely available, and would be interested in working with the DC public school system to achieve this goal.
Candidate --- Jeff Stoner
With the new year, I would like to step up my involvement in the Linux Community and run for the Tux.org BoD. My background: I was literally thrown into becoming a UNIX admin in 1996 when my supervisor left and there was no one else available to manage the AT&T 3B2 300 systems and Sun SPARCstation workstations. Since then, I've helped manage data center floors containing anywhere from 40 to 400 servers running Linux (primarily Redhat) for all areas of corporate need. I've managed mail, DNS, MySQL/Postgres/Oracle databases, Apache, Tomcat/Weblogic/Resin/JBoss app servers and everything else in-between. I bring not my technical skills to Tux.org as much as my experience running Linux effectively in business and university settings. I've hepled shape business and technical processes & procedures in young, growing companies as well as provided advocation for expanded Linux and FOSS adoption in the enterprise. I take bold actions when warranted to cut through red tape and provide a solution where it is most needed. I don't act on spur-of-the-moment topics but instead, take in as much as I need to make an informed decision, adding not just my experiences but seeking the advise of others.

Date of last update: 29 January 2007

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