Who are you? (biography/background
I am an experienced technical leader and developer, with a portfolio of experience on the web generally, and with Drupal in particular. I have spent the majority of my career working on projects that involve large amounts of content and Drupal has been a natural fit as one of my favorite tools to tackle those issues.
My history with Drupal began in 2008 when I was dropped into supporting sites built on Drupal versions 4.7 and 5; site builds with the brand new Drupal 6 quickly followed. In 2014, I joined Chromatic as a partner, and have spent these past 9 years helping our clients find solutions to their most complicated technical problems. Oftentimes those solutions rely heavily on Drupal! Throughout this time I have written and spoken publicly about topics ranging from the technical to the interpersonal, including at Drupal camps and multiple DrupalCons.
Away from Drupal and Chromatic, I am an avid traveler, cyclist, amateur TV critic, and an enthusiastic, but fledgling Minecraft builder with my daughter Kai.
Why are you running for a board seat at the Drupal Association? (mission/motivation)
The situation that the Drupal Association found itself in due to COVID during the spring of 2020 left an indelible impression on me; showing how quickly the ground under our feet can change, and how important it is that we remain nimble as an organization. I was very pleased to see the strategic changes that were made including a renewed focus on decreasing ongoing costs by utilizing open-source projects to more fully meet our tooling needs (see: GitLab Acceleration Initiative). As a member of the Drupal Association board, I would push to maintain or increase our momentum in evolving the tools that we select and support, with the vision of keeping pace with the evolution of tooling in the wider open-source community.
Additionally, I believe it is critical to Drupal's success that we continue to reduce the barriers to project contribution, help foster the next generation of Drupal talent, and recognize the efforts of our community, from developers to end-users, and I want to ensure that the Drupal Association is at the forefront of that effort.
Why should members vote for you? (qualifications)
I have followed the activities of the Drupal Association board as an interested member for many years, including attending the public board meeting annually where I have been a vocal participant. I believe my contributions and past interactions have shown that I am well-versed in the issues the association faces and that I am capable of bringing my experience to bear on those issues. This, coupled with my perspective as a business owner in the Drupal ecosystem, has allowed me to understand how hard it is to turn a ship as big as the Drupal Association and the community at large. Yet I also believe it is essential that we continue to make incremental improvements, moving step by step in the right direction; that will be my mission as a Drupal Association board member.
