When I was elected to the Board and then as President of LOPSA in the
past term, I had an agenda I wanted to pursue on behalf of LOPSA's
current members and the future members I hoped our programs would
attract.

Little did I know at the time that LOPSA would be dealing with a
lawsuit, and as nominal CEO of the corporation, I would end up having
what amounted to a second job managing LOPSA's response to the suit.
I am profoundly relieved that with the settlement we announced last
month, LOPSA can put this chapter behind us and begin moving forward
once again.

My agenda remains the same. LOPSA is the only nonprofit corporation

Two years ago, I sought re-election to the LOPSA board as a continuation
of my commitment to LOPSA. At the time, we had completed the
"groundwork" phase, and I was looking forward to building on that
base. In my candidate statement, I said ".. we have made progress, but
we there is much work yet to be done." While there will always be more
work to do, we did not make as much progress in the past two years, due
to circumstances beyond our control.

In the Spring of 2008 the Board committed to a set of ambitious, but
acheivable projects. For the most part, those projects were put on hold

I've been doing this Board thing for a bit, and seen many things. I think we're uniquely positioned now to really start moving with our primary mission: to serve & advance the SA community & profession. I believe that the hurdles we've faced in the establishment of LOPSA have unavoidably distracted us from that goal, but I think we've an environment in which we can thrive.

OK- that may sound nice, but what the heck does it mean? I'm no longer a newcomer on the board, nor am I just moving back into the large systems world. I've been working a my present site for a bit over 2 years now, and have been more involved with training new SA's, and really trying to learn the more advanced areas of our field, as well as attempting to figure out what would help the community.

My name is Derek Balling, and it has been my honor and privilege to serve you as a member of your Board of Directors this past term. I am seeking re-election to the Board because there is much left to do, and I feel a strong desire to help guide us towards a better future.

But "guide" is the appropriate word. LOPSA is a member-driven organization. From its outset, there has been a core group of volunteers who have made things work. And while their efforts were and are greatly appreciated, we need to grow our volunteerism. We need you, yes you, to help make LOPSA the organization you want it to be. And one of the board's tasks needs to be making the organization something you WANT to volunteer for.

It has been my pleasure to serve you as a current board member and I am seeking reelection to try and continue and build upon what came before and during my time on the board.

The goals of LOPSA to advance the profession and to support and serve the practitioners cannot be fulfilled without an active membership working toward those goals.

As a current member of the LOPSA Board of Directors and a LOPSA Founding Member, I am seeking re-election to continue my work in helping LOPSA be a great member-driven and community-focused organization. Our membership, our colleagues, and our communities and organizations both need and deserve a better, stronger professional association to support system administrators and the people who rely on the systems the sysadmins manage for them. A strong LOPSA allows for better sharing of knowledge, including fundamentals of system and networking technologies, best practices, security issues, and more through informal networking via the mailing lists, IRC channels, and the like as well as formal channels such as the local chapter events and training classes offered throughout the year in various venues.

I am not your average sysadmin--if there is such a thing. For one
thing, there's how I came to make this my career which I've been doing
for 22 years. I have a masters degree in electrical engineering (UConn
'85) with a concentration in electromagnetics and solid state physics
and I studied antennas and fiber optics. But as it turned out I didn't
really like being engineer. I prefer to do things for people. It's
probably the mom (and as of a year ago a grandmother!) in me--which is
another thing that maybe sets me apart a bit. It does color how It can
certainly can help to think of systems as errant children: patience is

My name is Daniel Rich and I have been a member of LOPSA since its inception. I am a firm believer in the mission of the organization and feel that it is important that those of us in system administration have a professional society that can both provide the services that we need as professionals and to help advance system and network administration as a profession.

LOPSA of course is still a young organization and will take time to grow to its full potential. I believe that now is the time to discuss and develop the plans for what you the members want the organization to be. We need to figure out how to connect with our members and potential members at the local level. We need to build an organization that will continue to grow and thrive and can help our members do the same. As someone who has worked in the systems administration field for the past 20 years, I believe I can help set this direction to bring LOPSA to the next level.

My name is Chris “Ski” Kacoroski. I am honored to be a candidate for the
LOPSA board. I believe that LOPSA is important because it has the
potential to professionalize (yes that is a word) system administration.
This will help us by providing more resources/respect/visibility in
society (have you ever heard of parents wanting their kids to become
system admins?) and help society understand the importance of system
administrators as much of society depends on the systems we create and
maintain.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well it takes a community
to create a good system admin. A community that provides training,