I was first introduced to LOPSA via the PICC conference in New Brunswick, New Jersey. At that conference I learned of the mission of LOPSA and the importance of a conferences such as PICC (Now LOPSA-East).  I began attending LOPSA-NJ meetings and started speaking at them.  Since that time I have spoken at larger conferences and grown professionally through the experience I gained in the smaller LOPSA local and LOPSA led conferences.

When I moved away from New Jersey I found that LOPSA was also active in my new home town of Seattle, Washington.  For the last three years I have been serving the local Seattle chapter of LOPSA, SASAG.  In addition to serving as Vice-President of SASAG, I have helped manage sponsorships for Cascadia IT, the West Coast LOPSA conference.

If I am successfully elected to the board I would continue supporting Cascadia IT.  I feel the smaller size of Cascadia makes the conference a great incubator for system administrator speakers, many of the speakers have gone on to speak at larger conferences.  I also feel that the local LOPSA chapters are an important part of the professional system administrator community.  The #lopsa channel on IRC is still very active and supportive.  I firmly believe you use the best tool to solve the job and that is a belief supported by LOPSA.  As I've often heard from fellow members, "any system requires a system administrator".  It doesn't matter if the system is a system of Cisco switches or Windows Active Directory servers, or even a farm of Linux machines, the person running those systems is a system administrator.  Any system administrator can join LOPSA and help to elevate and further the professional awareness of our field.

--Thomas.