My name is Branson Matheson and  am putting my name in the hat as a Board Member for LOPSA.  I am a 30 year veteran of system administration and the many disciplines that make up our doctrine. I believe I am a strong candidate given my experience, vision and support for a stronger community. I am asking for your support that together we may continue to improve LOPSA.

My experience provides strong capabilities to support many goals.  I am an active participant in our sysadmin community and have worked in a wide variety of environments including large corporation, government contracting, startup and small and large-scale internet services provisioning. I plan, manage, teach and speak around the world at a diverse set of security and system admin focused conferences such as LISA, LOPSA-East, Cisco SecCon and Shmoocon. I have a history of developing  concepts and ideas into successful tools. I have a strong desire to see system administration develop to meet the evolution of our Art, while also providing support to individuals and organizations that must continue to maintain existing systems and environments. 

I envision LOPSA continuing growth as a haven for system administrators of all stripe; and becoming a larger part of the core of our community.  As sysadmins we are finding that the power of the internet has developed and changed how we practice our art. This evolution should lead to stronger bonds among peers and collaborative groups such as engineering, networking and security. I will work to find creative ways for LOPSA to provide or produce services that can enable our community and the groups we support to communicate effectively and improve the ability to provide high levels of service.  

As a board member I intend to work with the league and community to promote ideas and develop new resources used to support our day-to-day job functions, improve the security of our existing offerings and help enhance our chosen profession.  Through these enhancements I hope to continue expanding LOPSA as the leading community for system administration.  I am asking for your support. 

I am running for reelection as LOPSA Treasurer.  During the past two years, my major accomplishments in this role have been:

• Reinstatement of LOPSA's 501(c)(3) status, which has been revoked due to past delinquencies in IRS filings
  
• Set up system for timely and transparent management of accounts payable
  
• Provided detailed bi-weekly reports to LOPSA Board of current bank balances and P&L
  
• Consolidated bank accounts for easier management of cash flow
  
• Full participation as LOPSA Board member in online and face-to-face meetings
  

I have been working in the IT industry for the past 23 years, and have been a system/network administrator for thirteen of those years. I hold graduate degrees in Geology/Geophysics. Current areas of specialization include Windows and Linux server administration, LAN/WAN and wireless networks, cloud (Microsoft Azure and Office 365) administration, and network/host security. Due to working in a medium-size (~260 person) company where I hold a number of roles, I consider myself an IT generalist. This requires ongoing training both to ensure my skills remain current, and to learn new topics as job responsibilities evolve. LOPSA has played a significant role in my career development through professional conferences, trainings, meetings, and networking opportunities with peers. As a LOPSA board member, my commitment would be to expand these opportunities, and ensure that other system administrators recognize LOPSA’s considerable career benefits and become involved with the organization.

We are happy to announce our new initiative, KnowledgePress! Share your knowledge with the community while increasing visibility and traffic for your own blog. With KnowledgePress, you can contribute articles without sacrificing the health of your blog or having to use other than your preferred blogging platform. We will be accepting submissions immediately. 

KnowledgePress submission will be reviewed by the Community Manager, then distributed. Distribution will be over our various social media channels as soon as an article is approved. Submissions will also be indexed at https://lopsa.org/KnowledgePress. A weekly digest of KnowledgePress articles will be sent to all Members over e-mail. 

Your submissions should include a link to the article on your blog. If you'd like to select a section of your article as a preview please include the quote in your e-mail, otherwise a blurb will be selected for you by the editor. 

We're excited to see read your articles. Please send your submission to community@lopsa.org

LOPSA is excited to relaunch our Mentorship Program on more stable footing. Sharing our excitement is our first mentee, Adam Snetiker. We picked his brain about participating in our program and present the interview below. If you'd like to contribute as a Mentor or participate as a mentee check us out at https://mentor.lopsa.org/

[Q: Could you please introduce yourself to our readers and tell us about your current background and experience, and your aspirations with regard to the field of system administration?]

It all begins with my love of design. I've always been impressed by anything that looked really cool and stopped me dead in my tracks. I always wanted to get into the field of special effects, but when I went to college at Indiana University (Bloomington), I noticed the Informatics major. Not knowing much about it other than that it was a new, hot field related to IT, my family and I decided it would be a more practical major than fine arts. It was all about choosing a cognate area, and I chose Telecommunications which allowed me to take courses in Flash, 3D modeling and animation, DVD authoring, video editing, and TV studio and field production along with the required courses in Java programming, mathematical foundations and others.

My first few roles were in DVD menu design and authoring. After being laid off, I began to teach myself the basics of web development which led to a content management role producing marketing and client retention content for mortgage companies and their loan officers. After being laid off from that role, I began self-study in advanced web development tools including various JavaScript frameworks, automation tools and more. After failing to grasp some of those concepts and build up my skills without proper instruction, I decided to return to school to begin pursuit of a career in one of the more traditional areas of IT including networking, system administration and cybersecurity. Currently, I'm taking these courses in pursuit of an Advanced Network Specialist Certificate of Achievement at Moorpark College, and eventually will be going after a Cybersecurity certificate when those courses are developed in the near future.

Two of the required courses for the certificate that I have already taken include Microsoft Windows Administration and Microsoft Windows Server Administration. Both of these courses completely opened my eyes to System Administration as both an area of IT and a viable future career path by making me look at computing in a completely new way. Immediately, I was blown away by the sheer number of useful tools available in Windows that I never noticed as a general user and the fact that these tools have always been right there on every PC I have owned. I am amazed the power they give administrators to perform both simple routine maintenance and complex tasks that enhance system performance and allow management of all devices in an organization.

[Q: How did you find LOPSA? When did you join? Why did you join? ]

I decided to search for professional organizations and joined LOPSA and others in an effort to make valuable connections with people and continue learning outside of my current classroom environment. In addition to LOPSA, I am currently a student member of the ACM, IEEE, ISSA and OWASP, and have attended a few conferences.

For a long time, I have followed thought leaders and industry experts on Twitter and other social media platforms and have occasionally sent emails soliciting advice or asking questions. Generally, I have gotten their opinion which I value very much, but have always hoped to find a mentor I can turn to for help in establishing myself as somebody who can add value to an organization as an IT professional. Thankfully, I came across LOPSAs mentorship program and was recently accepted and matched.

[Q: What do you find appealing about the LOPSA mentorship program? You mentioned you've been looking for something like this for years, could you tell us more about that, and what excites you the most about the program? What do you hope to get out of it?]

What excites me the most about this program is the ability to interact with someone who is a current practicing professional with experience in areas of IT in which I hope to build a successful career. What I hope to get out of it is specific feedback that will help me to establish a focused plan of action that includes careers I should target at the entry level and the most important skills for success. Eventually, I hope this feedback process will repeat itself as I work through my career so that as the specific skills and job titles change, the focus is still on making sure they are in sync so I can continue to advance and add value.

[Q: How has your interaction with your mentor been so far?]

We have sent several messages back and forth through the LOPSA Mentor web page, have connected on LinkedIn and have scheduled a Google Hangouts meeting next weekend. My biggest hope is that this person becomes a valuable connection that will be able to hold me accountable and notice the progress I make while being able to continue pushing me further towards success.

[Q: Anything else you want to communicate to our readers (who are both seasoned professionals and students and everything in between.]

The biggest thing I would emphasize for readers is to become somebody in the eyes of other people. Networking is the best thing you can do for yourself regardless of what career level you're at, but make the extra effort to send a message so that people know who you are. Take me for example - if I was just another person who filled out the form on LOPSA's mentor website, I wouldn't be featured in this newsletter. Instead, you're all reading a story written about me.

Adam may be found on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamsnetiker) or contacted via email at adam.snetiker@ieee.org. "I look forward to meeting anyone and everyone and hope we can all work together to advance our careers and continue learning together."

LOPSA has hired a new Community Manager. As LOPSA expands, the work of maintaining such a large organization is a daunting task for volunteers. Roger Luedecke is a long time Member and Volunteer of the openSUSE Project. As Community Manager he brings his experience in open source and tech communities to the tasks of managing  the LOPSA community.

Roger can be reached at rluedecke@LOPSA.org

I'm proud to announce the Leadership Committee's 2017 election results. The results were prepared Matt Okeson-Harlow, processed by Andrew Hume, and confirmed by Scott Murphy.

Thanks to Paul English, George Beech, Ski Kacoroski, and other members of the board for supporting the Leadership Committee during the elections.

Extra special thanks to the Leadership Committee this year. Without having any incumbents re-run, there was much more work leading up to the election compared to usual. Our success is thanks to Adam Luck, Andrew Hume, Matt Okeson-Harlow, Scott Murphy, and Trevor Thorpe. They are our Leadership Committee.

I'd also like to recognize our exiting Board Members for their service. Thank you for your service Atom Powers, Paul English, Ray Thrush, and Ski Kacoroski. 

Ski has served eight terms, which is the longest of any Board Member in LOPSA history. Thanks for your time and dedicatation, Ski. We wish you the best in your future endeavors.

=========================

Election Results

The elections for the 2017 LOPSA Board of Directors has concluded. The winners are Drew Adams, Andy Cowell, Aleksey Tsalolikhin, and Danielle White.

We present below the report of the independent monitor, Andrew Hume. The Leadership Committee

----------------

Report on the 2017 election.

The 2017 LOPSA election was conducted as it has been in the past. Votes are automatically collected by software run by Matt Okeson-Harlow and at the end of the election are captured and processed by the Meek single transferable vote method. The software is available at http://www.openstv.org (although I just did a ‘yum install openstv’) and if you'd like to run the election yourself, the raw ballots are presented below. I used version 1.7 of OpenSTV.

For a more detailed explanation of the overall method, material may be found at http://www.openstv.org and Wikipedia.

The abbreviated summary for this election follows below.

Andrew Hume

------------------

Election title: LOPSA Vote 2017

Method: Meek STV with Droop-Dynamic-Fractional threshold

Ballot Cleaning: San Francisco

Number of total ballots: 54

Number of invalid or empty ballots: 0

Number of ballots used in the count: 54

5 candidate running for 4 seats.

Round 1: Aleksey Tsalolikhin and Danielle White are elected.

Round 2: Transferring surplus votes; no new electees.

Round 3: Transferring surplus votes; Andy Cowell and Drew Adams elected.

The election is over since all seats are filled.

The votes in BLT format (md5=c1d76489ea5fe1176d79d251adbbc022)

5 5

1 1 4 3 5 2 0

1 4 1 2 0

1 3 5 4 1 2 0

1 4 5 1 2 3 0

1 4 1 2 3 5 0

1 4 3 1 2 5 0

1 5 4 3 2 1 0

1 3 4 1 0

1 4 5 1 2 3 0

1 1 4 3 2 5 0

1 4 1 5 3 2 0

1 4 1 5 2 3 0

1 4 5 2 1 3 0

1 4 1 2 3 5 0

1 4 2 5 3 1 0

1 4 1 2 5 3 0

1 1 4 2 5 3 0

1 1 3 4 2 5 0

1 4 1 2 5 3 0

1 1 4 2 3 5 0

1 4 1 2 5 3 0

1 1 4 5 2 3 0

1 1 5 2 3 4 0

1 2 3 5 4 1 0

1 1 4 2 0

1 4 1 2 3 5 0

1 4 3 1 5 2 0

1 1 5 2 3 4 0

1 5 3 2 1 4 0

1 1 4 5 2 3 0

1 1 4 2 3 5 0

1 1 2 4 5 3 0

1 2 5 3 4 1 0

1 1 5 2 3 4 0

1 1 4 2 5 3 0

1 1 2 4 3 5 0

1 4 1 2 3 5 0

1 1 4 5 2 3 0

1 1 4 2 5 3 0

1 4 2 5 3 1 0

1 1 4 3 5 2 0

1 4 3 1 5 2 0

1 4 5 2 3 1 0

1 1 4 0

1 4 1 3 5 2 0

1 4 2 1 5 3 0

1 4 1 5 2 3 0

1 4 1 2 5 3 0

1 1 4 5 2 3 0

1 2 1 4 5 3 0

1 5 4 3 1 2 0

1 5 1 2 4 3 0

1 1 3 4 5 2 0

1 3 4 5 2 1 0

0

"Aleksey Tsalolikhin"

"Andy Cowell"

"Andree Jacobson"

"Danielle White"

"Drew Adams"

"LOPSA Election 2017"

JUNE 21 CANDIDATE Q&A (CONTINUED)

#LOPSA-Live 2017-06-21

Trev71	So, next question, order will be Andy, Andree, Aleksey, Danielle and Drew...
Trev71	One sec..
Trev71	Moderator copy/paste issues :) hang tight a second please..
Trev71	What methods do you think would work for reaching out to members and providing more community to them (other than IRC and mailing lists)? -- From Dan Rich.
Trev71	Andy - you are up...
vt102	typing...
vt102	I believe LOPSA is currently recruiting a paid Community Manager, and I believe this was a great decision by our current board.  Community is important.  Tools and methods are less important that having someone capable helping organize it.
vt102	There are so many "social" tools out there that it seems almost inevitable that there would be some fragmentation of the community.  But the community manager could curate the most important ideas and propagate those through the largest and most important communities, whatever those become.
vt102	EOF
Trev71	Andree ?
Trev71	-- and a reminder, send your questions or follow ups over to Adam (aluck), thanks !
NMSwede	Well… As much as I love IRC, the younger generation doesn't seem to know about it. If we use it as a tool for reaching out, the audience probably won't be huge. LinkedIn, Facebook, etc are important. Like Andy is saying, the Community Manager will be a huge help, and I also think trying to reach out at job fairs, etc. At least have a flyer that can be printable, and a link sent to people we know that does recrui
NMSwede	ting, etc. It might be useful, might not. Word of mouth helps as well, so encouraging current members (like Aleksey said - you get out what you put in) to help with this will be key. \n
NMSwede	That was an EOL there, btw...
Trev71	Yea, I saw that... lol
Trev71	ok, next up Aleksey please...
atsaloli	Aleksey Tsalolikhin: For reaching out to members, there is no substitute for live communication. Chapter meetings are awesome -- I'd love to see more L.A. area LOPSA members participate. I wish it was easier for me to get in touch with them (or even know who they are).
atsaloli	The LOPSAgram is great -- I read mine eagerly every month.   And I always greatly enjoy the Annual Community Meeting. Let's keep that in and do a bit more on connecting individual members with their local chapters. EOF
Trev71	Danielle ?
ClothoMoirai	For tools Slack is worth investigating; most of my tech interaction outside of work is on that platform these days.
ClothoMoirai	I certainly support the decision to bring in expertise in a Community Manager.
ClothoMoirai	I believe our strongest tool at this point is to be in person and getting us into the organizations where we were not seen previously, to integrate our community there.
ClothoMoirai	EOF
Trev71	And, Andy...
vt102	Drew
ClothoMoirai	I think you mean Drew.
Trev71	Yes indeed I do.
Trev71	You guys/gals don't need me either way :)
NMSwede	Trev - I wouldn't be so sure - it's a pretty rowdy crowd in here tonight... :)
Trev71	You don't know the half of it :)
Trev71	Drew is up, no pressure, just a reminder...
druonysus	Nothing replaces in person. In person methods are the strongest and easiest ways for us to build connections. As part of this, I think we need to make sure we have a lively and attractive presence at conferences. Also, we need to find pace-makers in our current local communities and help them grow personally and professionally to put themselves out there… that is to say, booths and talks at conferences, attending meetups and generally
druonysus	talking to people about LOPSA. This benefits them and if they can also talk about how their participation LOPSA has helped them it would go a long way. We need to encourage people to connect with others. If we make sure the benefits are there, it will be easy for them them to tell their peers about the good thing that is LOPSA.
druonysus	END
Trev71	Thanks for those answers...
Trev71	Next question we will jump to Aleksey first, Danielle, Drew, Andy and then Andree...
atsaloli	ok
Trev71	ok "Some of you have mentioned student outreach as part of sustainable membership retention. As a student in perpetuity, I'm interested in this. Could the candidates please elaborate on what they think can be done to do this, what concrete projects or relationships they can build to acheive this goal? What does a successful student outreach program look like?
Trev71	"
atsaloli	I did a presentation on the sysadmin career path at the UCLA computer club a while back.  The room was packed!
atsaloli	There are computer clubs at other local colleges and universities, for example USC.
atsaloli	In addition to the "what is a sysadmin and what does a sysadmin do" type presentations, interested LOPSA members could offer talks on Linux basics, troubleshooting etc.
atsaloli	As we don't have a "student" membership in LOPSA, success would be measured by students actually joining the profession when they enter the workforce and being professional members of LOPSA.
atsaloli	of course they could join now as well and mayhap we could offer a student discount
atsaloli	ultimately successful outreach would equal a growing member base
atsaloli	EOF
Trev71	Thanks Aleskey, Danielle please..
ClothoMoirai	System adminstration is not a field that seems to be often shown to students in their academic career typically so I believe there is a lot of room. We certainly see this with interns at my current workplace.
ClothoMoirai	They need to be shown it as a career option but including information that could mean they decide that it is unsuitable for them.
ClothoMoirai	LOPSA presence on campus will go far here. When I was a part-time student at UNC-Chapel Hill I often saw companies do presentations with soda and pizza that were well attended.
ClothoMoirai	But that's the first step. I will admit that I'm too far removed from current students to say what would continue to appeal to them and would seek further information before I could commit to extended plans.
ClothoMoirai	EOF
Trev71	Thank you, Drew ?
druonysus	Connecting and collaborating with colleges and universities is a good place to start. That covers the formal students, but I think meetups and other local learning and networking events are another good way. I think we can also help students and people in general to understand the different specialties and careers/career paths available to people with knowledge of systems… show them how we can help them form a community of enthusiastic
druonysus	and effective learners. By doing this we not only help people start out to feed the industry with a strong pipeline of next generation of talent. As more people discover the benefits of LOPSA as they learn and grow, it will encourage them to remain a lifetime active member.
druonysus	END
Trev71	Thanks Drew!
Trev71	Andy ?
vt102	The primary goal would be discussion of career paths and the skills that are neeeded.  I learned SysAdmin while in school, but it wasn't in the classrooms.  It was through in-person mentoring and on-the-job training.
vt102	Now more that ever, people need guideposts in their career and understanding how the pieces fit together.  It would be a poor DevOps engineer who ignored decades of valuable, hard-learned SysAdmin expertise!
vt102	I am currently exploring a multi-facted student program locally, by coordinating several local usergroups to interact with each other in real, meaningful ways.
vt102	The dev usergroups code an opensource project, the LOPSA members package and operate, the PMs organize, and those interested in management manage it.  Technologies and topics could be selected specifically to gain widest exposure.
vt102	Alternately, somebody like a LOPSA member could join the developers, to gain some empathy and understanding of their experiences.
vt102	I thought to encourage the work to be done as though remote, since more work is done that way today, to give that experience as well.  It then occurred to me, that if people were working as though remote, there's no real need for it to be a solely local program.
vt102	It may or may not pan out in the end, but I think it's a good example of an idea to give students or people in other careers exposure to a realistic work environment and/or possible careers.
vt102	EOF
Trev71	Thank you, and Andree ?
NMSwede	Many areas in NM are pretty rural. It's hard to get students to do stuff after hours. I taught at UNM for 5 years before going to where I'm at now. I've seen local ACM chapters fail here, etc. just because so many students have families, and other things to do.
NMSwede	When I was in school, the computer labs were full, because few really had useful computers (too early for linux) at home.
NMSwede	We networked there. This does not happen very much today, when everyone has laptops and does work from home.
NMSwede	However, students are still important - The reason, I think students are important is because they are us, but in the future. However, there aren't many sysadmin hackathons organized.
NMSwede	Why, because there isn't a specific "let's just do fun sysadmin stuff..."
NMSwede	We sorta need something to support for it to be really useful. Something like Cluster building, or similar.
NMSwede	I think if we as a group can organize some activities around this, maybe do a networked event something like helping multiple groups of students setting up a redundant system across multiple schools or something like that, something that's useful.
NMSwede	Advertise it, perhaps in support of some specific other activity that also draws people. Meetups, or the like. Like Danielle said, academic programs don't teach systems administration, and without hands-on experience, it's almost impossible to learn. A push in that direction, I think, would be great. EOL.
Trev71	Thank you for those answers, Candidates.
Trev71	So, we are approaching the 90 minute marker and I think its time to wrap things up a bit.
atsaloli	Thanks for keeping us on track
Trev71	I would like each candidate to give us a brief closing statement, I'll default to the initial order of Drew, Andy, Andree, Aleksey and Danielle.
Trev71	Meanwhile I want to remind everyone that the transcripts for both sessions will be available on the lopsa.org website for your review...
Trev71	and that we need your vote --> https://election.lopsa.org
lopsabot	Title: LOPSA Election (at election.lopsa.org)
Trev71	We can open this channel up, after the closing statements.
Trev71	Drew, you are up.
Trev71	We had some well thought out answers tonight, much appreciated candidates...
Trev71	Voting ends on July 1, 2017....
Trev71	And another quick reminder, one of our candidate, Danielle White, did miss the first LIVE event and her answers to the questions are posted on our news page.
Trev71	Part 4 of the Lopsa Live, June 14 event http://lopsa.org/blog/4906590
theWarner	To no fault of her own. Unfortunately, I was unable to provide enough notice.
Trev71	Be sure to catch up on her answers !
druonysus	I want to say thanks to everyone for being patient with me as I know I have not cranked these answers out at the fastest pace ever. I hope everyone can detect the care and thought I have put into my answers. I care. A lot. I care about LOPSA and the success of our organization and, very importantly, it's members. I would love to bring my unique skills to the board to help us collectively leverage what I have learned in my diverse set of
druonysus	experiences into this new domain. However, I want to be clear that I know there is no one size fits all answer to our success. I know what works well to speak to people in big cities will be different than attracting people in smaller, more spread out areas. What we have to offer for students may not always be the thing that keeps the long time members sticking around. When I worked sales it was very important that I would read my customer
druonysus	to be able to communicate to them and speak to their needs most effectively. As a technology professional, I think learning in important and I think that is at the core of what we have offer each other as LOPSA members and as a board member I hope to do much learning and growing as we all find more success together. Lastly, I want to thank everyone who submitted questions as well as everyone involved in this election, including my fellow
druonysus	candidates.
druonysus	END
vt102	In summary, I am running for the board because I give a damn about system administration and LOPSA, and I am willing to give my personal time and energy to them.
vt102	FIN
Trev71	Andree ?
NMSwede	Up until now, I haven't been a terribly active member of LOPSA, but I have been a paid member for several years. Someone thought I would be a good board candidate and nominated me - I still don't know who, but I'll find out eventually :) I'm honored to have been nominated - and I see the tremendous benefits that being part of this organization can be. I
NMSwede	have this nack for getting involved in stuff, and when I do - I typically get involved at a relatively high level. As a board member of LOPSA, I will definitely be more active, and get to know a lot more of you significantly better. I can't really think of a better community in which to be more involved in. If elected will do my best to help the organization reach the goals we set for it. EOF.
Trev71	Aleksey ?
atsaloli	What you get out of LOPSA is related to what you put into it.   I intend to put more into LOPSA.  =)  My primary concern is to get our membership growing -- I'd love to see us reach and pass the 1,000 mark.
atsaloli	The LOPSA-LA "Build a cloud day" event got lot of interest. I'd like to do more hands-on events like that in LA. I encourage any LA-area LOPSA members to get in touch with the LOPSA-LA chapter (www.meetup.com/lopsala) -- we need your energy and ideas.
atsaloli	Thanks to the leadership committee and the organizers/moderators of the LOPSA-live session. Thanks candidates for running.  Thanks everyone for coming out and participating, and hello to the LOPSA members reading the session transcript!
atsaloli	EOF
Trev71	And Danielle ?
ClothoMoirai	I appreciate everyone's time today and the confidence of the nomination.
ClothoMoirai	We clearly at a critical point and I will work toward ensuring LOPSA can meet these challenges.
ClothoMoirai	Across the questions here tonight and conversations with others I have been able to quantify those challenges and will focus on meeting them.
ClothoMoirai	In the short term I am doing work to get LOPSA into places where we haven't been, such as the All Things Open conference, Girl Develop It, and students.
ClothoMoirai	Those venues include many individuals who have either not felt welcome or were simply missed in the past, particularly women and minorites, and Windows admins.
ClothoMoirai	For LOPSA to remain viable this must improve and I am comitted to seeing that through, including in person such as at ATO which is local to me.
ClothoMoirai	EOF
Trev71	Thank you...
Trev71	I want to take a quick moment to thank all of the members for coming out and showing personal interest in the direction of the organization.
vt102	Thanks Trev71,  scott5, theWarner, and my fellow candidates!
Trev71	Also, of course, the candidates for wanting to play an active role.
Trev71	Please review the transcripts -- and Vote!  https://election.lopsa.org
lopsabot	Title: LOPSA Election (at election.lopsa.org)
theWarner	Thanks so much, everyone.
Trev71	Thanks everyone!
theWarner	Vote! =)
NMSwede	Thank you for organizing all this, and for all the thoughtful questions as well
atsaloli	Thank you! =)

Don't forget to vote! Voting closes July 1, 2017

Once again, my apologies for having to split the posts. I believe I can manage it with just two posts this time. This was lightly edited to remove some of the noise from the transcript

JUNE 21 CANDIDATE Q&A

#LOPSA-Live 2017-06-21

Trev71	Good evening everyone, just wrapping up some preliminary discussions on the back end, started in a moment.
Trev71	We will give it a couple more mins to allow for those running a couple mins late.
Trev71	But just a couple quick minutes.. we won't stretch it out.
Trev71	ok - so, I was typing in the wrong channel... great moderation!
Trev71	So then, Good Evening everyone, my name is Trev Thorpe, on the Leadership Committee and will be working to moderate this event tonight.
Trev71	Just to make sure we are all on the same page, the candidates are:
Trev71	- Drew Adams
Trev71	- Andy Cowell
Trev71	- Andree Jacobson
Trev71	- Aleksey Tsalolikhin
Trev71	- Danielle White
Trev71	They can introduce themselves in order, first up is Drew
Trev71	-- please forward any and all questions you would like asked to the candidates to aluck (Adam) he will queue questions up and we will get to them post introductions.
atsaloli	Hi. Candidate Aleksey Tsalolikhin here.
Trev71	Welcome, thanks for coming.
atsaloli	=)
Trev71	Drew is typing up his intro to the group, and you will fall in after Andree..
atsaloli	ok
NMSwede	Alright
druonysus	I am Drew Adams. I am "Sr. DevOps Engineer", for whatever that title is worth. I work a lot with Salt, Docker, and Kubernetes. I am a long time openSUSE Member and Advocate. I organize and work the openSUSE booth at the Southern California Linux Expo every year (since 2012). I have also been involved with the Salt community since late 2011/early 2012 and have given 2 talks at SaltConf.
Trev71	Thanks !
Trev71	Andy?
vt102	Hi, I'm Andy Cowell.  I've been in system administration since the mid-'90s, and my claim to fame is that I hosted Metallica.com when Metallica sued Napster.  Which was "fun."
vt102	I have served in a lot of technical roles— developer, network, storage, virtualization, and cloud, for some of the largest sites on the Internet, such as Dilbert.com and HGTV.com.
vt102	For the past few years, I have managed a team of sysadmins who have transitioned into cloud engineers.  I have been an active and enthusiastic member of my local LOPSA chapter since 2012, where I have been in a leadership role for the last year.
vt102	EOF
Trev71	awesome, Andree ?
Trev71	-- And yes, please EOF us so that we know you are completed, I don't wish to cut you off.
NMSwede	Andree Jacobson - Currently CIO @ New Mexico Consortium, a mid-size non-profit facilitating collaborations between Los Alamos National Lab and the universities in New Mexico. I've been in this role for the last 7 years, and also ran the NSF project called PRObE. We took machines (1000+ nodes) that LANL decommissioned and made them available to the research community nationally. I'm also a computer geek at heart, a
NMSwede	nd I'm always doing something. Running a small consulting business on the side, mostly doing systems software for large scale computer installations. I'm managing a group of dedicated sysadmins that work hard to provide infrastructure for about 150 researchers working on various projects. EOF
atsaloli	Aleksey Tsalolikhin:  sysadmin since mid 90's. Member of USENIX and SAGE and then LOPSA.  Organizer of LOPSA Los Angeles chapter.  Consulting sysadmin and trainer.  EOF
Trev71	Thank you Andree, Aleksey ? a brief intro please..
atsaloli	I love LOPSA
Trev71	Got it, quick.
atsaloli	=)
Trev71	And Danielle ?
ClothoMoirai	Hello, by process of elimination I am Danielle White. I'm officially a senior sysadmin by title and for almost a year I have been in automation development work, largely Python and Ansible.
ClothoMoirai	I have served as lead of a team of system administrators in software as a service work for a large business intelligence/business analytics company.
ClothoMoirai	EOF
Trev71	ok - I have a couple of questions here, one moment and we will go again in the same order to keep things simple.
atsaloli	ok
Trev71	Ok, so, question " What do you want to improve in LOPSA " from a member wishing to remain anonymous...
Trev71	Drew you are on the spot first again, next question I will change the order a bit :)
Trev71	Other candidates, to be clear, you all will have the chance to answer the same question.
atsaloli	Got it
druonysus	haha. @Trev71 thanks. Writing answer now. :D
druonysus	Drew: I would love to improve the mind-share of people in the industry. I think LOPSA has a great reputation with those who know about the organization, but due to movements like the DevOps, there are a lot of people would benefit from system knowledge and a community and organization like LOPSA. Because they are not and never have been a sysadmin they may not know about LOPSA or think the org is not for them. I think we can make ourselves
druonysus	more attractive to more of these people and grow to be a stronger community and organization.
druonysus	END
Trev71	Thanks, Andy?
vt102	Andy Cowell:
vt102	I want to see more direct support of local chapters.  I'd like to see experienced presenters available to present remotely to smaller local chapters, who can perhaps choose speakers with topics of interest to that local community.
vt102	The direct interaction could be of great benefit to the attendees, and interesting topics with knowledgable speakers could help the local chapter grow.
vt102	Other opportunities will no doubt present themselves— perhaps we can help organize national coroporate sponsorship for local chapters?— but the primary value I have seen in my own LOPSA experience is the great personal contacts I have made through my local chapter.  I want to encourage that vibrant activity in other local chapters.
vt102	EOF
Trev71	Thanks Andy, Andree ?
NMSwede	First, I think LOPSA is a great organization - I wouldn't aspire to be on the board if I didn't. That being said, as we discussed some in the last live session - we do have some issues with member numbers and retention. This is common with many organizations just like ours.
NMSwede	However, I do think there are things that we can do to improve the number of members, specifically by targeting students, finding the appropriate programs (I know a few, I think we all do), and make sure that we get our info out there. The mentor program should be a great backbone to what we do - and I think we should highlight the successes of our members, etc.
NMSwede	Also partnering with other focus groups, like the Machine Learning Society, and similar to help pull together local meet-ups and the like. EOL.
Trev71	Aleksey ?
atsaloli	Aleksey Tsalolikhin: I want to reverse the trend of our membership statistics (i.e. get it going up again). Provide more services to the community (e.g. more chapters or more active chapters, more mentoring, and outreach to the public re the sysadmin career path). EOF
Trev71	And Danielle ?
ClothoMoirai	My primary improvement areas for LOPSA are membership and conferences.
ClothoMoirai	We need sustainable membership and I am certain there are professionals we can reach who are not presently members, particularly ones in roles that are more dev than ops but definitely include the latter.
ClothoMoirai	Also there are organizations where LOPSA isn't known but those professonals are.
ClothoMoirai	For conferences there are newer ones like All Things Open where we need a presence.
ClothoMoirai	EOF
Trev71	Thank you!
Trev71	Next question, we will start with Andree, follow with Aleksey, Danielle, Drew and Andy
NMSwede	got it
Trev71	And the question is, "The introductions are great -- but why do you want to be on the LOPSA board / how will you benefit LOPSA ?"
Trev71	Coming from member cat-xegar, well I should say IRC name cat-xegar.
NMSwede	Typing...
Trev71	We could use more questions -- don't be shy, shoot them over to aluck please :)
NMSwede	Computation, Computers, and all kinds of devices are constantly growing in use. We hear about it everywhere. Everyone is using them. And for the people that make these systems work, they get to essentially sit in the shadows.
NMSwede	You don't hear about the great sysadmin at organization X that stopped something bad from happening. What I'm trying to say is that - we - as a group of professionals are severely under appreciated, and I think LOPSA is a fantastic way of getting the word out there.
Trev71	EOF ?
NMSwede	And, it's also a great group for sharing information with, and learning from.
NMSwede	EOF
NMSwede	Sorry, didn't cut-paste that last one ;)
Trev71	Great thanks!  and I jump in too quick.. either way.. next up :)
atsaloli	Aleksey Tsalolikhin: I am running for the board because LOPSA needs directors and I feel it is my duty to help my group.  I have a little executive experience (after working as a senior sysadmin I spent a year as Director of Operations; and I've been running my own (very small) company for a while (5 years part time and the last 3 years full time).  I will put my shoulder to the wheel and help as I can, if you'll have me.  =) I
atsaloli	stability of modern and future civilization. Sysadmins are valuable and important. We need more of them! EOF
Trev71	Danielle ?
ClothoMoirai	I want to see LOPSA become what I have long believed it can be: the premier organization for system administration.
ClothoMoirai	I will be direct here that I had somewhat drifted away from it in recent years.
ClothoMoirai	I began to be involved with local chapters of groups like Girl Develop it and Women Who Code and saw that there were people in those groups who were asking professional questions related to system administration and needed guidance.
ClothoMoirai	But they haven't heard about LOPSA and need it. I am involved because I want to guide LOPSA to have those members.
ClothoMoirai	EOF
Trev71	Drew?
druonysus	Drew: I have an interesting background. I was a sales person for may years. Before moving to technology I used my sales skills as a recruiter of sorts. Now that I work full time leveraging my technology skills I have been contributing my sales/marketing and recruiting skills to build a strong local Southern California openSUSE community. Since 2012, I went from being the only known active openSUSE community member  to building a strong
druonysus	community out here. I love LOPSA and I think one of the things we are in need is stronger local communities. I want to get more people engaged and having fun learning and growing together as soon as they join LOPSA. I think my experience in sales/marketing, and recruiting can help in this and my track record with openSUSE shows I know how to build strong communities that stick.
druonysus	END
Trev71	Andy ?
vt102	LOPSA was my first foray into a professional organization, and I have found it to be personally quite valuable.  There are the obvious benefits, such as learning new technologies and even public speaking as I presented at least one talk a year.  But I also developed friendships, too.
vt102	I want to help other people find the same value.  That is 100% my reason for running.
vt102	I believe our industry is in some turmoil.  There's almost a "Cambrian Explosion" as new roles such as DevOps, SRE, cloud engineers, and who knows what next have evolved from traditional system, network, and storage administration.
vt102	I believe all these roles— let's call them "Operations"— belong in LOPSA.  I personally have journeyed this path, have presented my experiences and learnings back to my local chapter, and have professionally led others through these transitions.
vt102	I hope these experiences will allow me to keep LOPSA a "big tent" with every form of Operations involved, a great source of all Operations knowledge, and each of us picking and choosing the best parts of others' experiences as needed.
vt102	EOF
Trev71	Ok then... thanks for those answers...
Trev71	Next question round will begin with Danielle White followed by Drew, Andy, Andree and Aleksey...
Trev71	Next question, incoming...
Trev71	"Your responses seem to provide a lot of opportunities for more senior people to provide things to LOPSA -- what does LOPSA provide to them?"
Trev71	And again, to Danielle first...
Trev71	And your questions, please shoot over to aluck (adam) for queuing up...
ClothoMoirai	I'm reminded of the statement of a LOPSA member (and my apologies for being unable to remember the name of whomever said it,) "If you don't plan do change plan to be unemployed in five years."
ClothoMoirai	In my own work as a senior system administrator I found that I needed resources I hadn't imagined previously. A great example was for mentoring my junior team members. LOPSA did offer me resources to begin that and I continued a lot on my own.
ClothoMoirai	EOF
vt102	typing...
Trev71	thank you, Drew ?
vt102	(sorry)
Trev71	Take your time Drew...
Trev71	Andy, Andree, Aleksey is the order once Drew answers..
atsaloli	ok
druonysus	Human connection, a sense of contribution and fulfillment. Passing on knowledge and context to the next germination of professionals.
druonysus	And honestly, I think the opportunities I see are for all. I think that people that learners can be teacher. Just-in-time learning is key to success in most specialties. Teaching helps solidify what you know and is good for all. There is no throne of knowledge that those who have been doing this for a while. We may have experience, but not a throne of knowledge.  I talk to a lot of people just starting out and they seem to think they need
druonysus	to build themselves that throne to get a job. When they find out they don't need that, they need to be willing to learn… it is very empowering. I think LOPSA has something to offer to all.
druonysus	END
Trev71	Thank you Drew, Andy.. you are up
vt102	I was already senior when I started attending my local chapter.  I went purely for the purpose of personal networking, and it has delivered in spades.  I have met people in other roles, other companies, and with differing experiences that I would never had met without LOPSA.
vt102	t also gives me a chance to give back.  I care about the profession, and I have been able to give my knowledge back to not just junior professionals, but senior professional in other niches that may never cross my own.
vt102	But we can share knowledge with each other and both come away better for the experience.
vt102	FWIW, I don't we should attract senior people who are wholly selfish in motivation.  Likewise, participating in LOPSA shouldn't be all give and no take for anyone.
vt102	EOF
Trev71	Andree ?
NMSwede	We can never stop learning, and as we grow in our professional roles - we do need support too. I started out as the only sysadmin in our organization when it was small. Love the tech stuff, got lots of stuff done, but organization grew, more people came onboard, and I became the manager. No training, but best of intentions - now I manage more than I do direct sysadmin stuff, my job is logistics mostly.
NMSwede	However, still gotta stay on top of things, but I do want to share with other in the same boat. That's hard to get without senior members who's gone through it, or decided not to go down that path.
NMSwede	Whether you consider this opportunity a benefit for the more senior members or not, is something you will have to decide on your own, but for me - it's valuable.
NMSwede	EOF
Trev71	Thanks Andree..
Trev71	Aleksey ?
atsaloli	Aleksey Tsalolikhin: I know what LOPSA has provided for me -- community and comradeship and no BS technical help and advice  when I needed it from people who have been there and done that. An opportunity to increase my contribution to society (e.g. by teaching at LOPSA University at Ohio Linux Fest, now Ohio Linux Fest Institute; and
atsaloli	SCALE University; CasITConf and LOPSA EAST). Opportunity to mentor and be mentored (Tom Limoncelli mentored  me on submitting technical book proposals -- that was awesome!)
atsaloli	I've made many friends through LOPSA.
atsaloli	I got to work with the LOPSA Professional Content Committee compiling the Guide to the Sysadmin Body of Knowledge (www.sabok.org) reading list.
atsaloli	I was delighted to receive a LOPSA challenge coin at the last Annual Community Meeting, and to be awarded Mentor of the Year in 2011.  That felt incredible. I try to contribute a lot to LOPSA and I feel I have received so much in return -- truly in abundance!
atsaloli	LOPSA allows me to help -- we helped a bright local LA chapter junior member get a job at Amazon. etc.  Life changing stuff!
atsaloli	I propose that what you get out of LOPSA is related to what you put into it.  =)
atsaloli	EOF
Trev71	ok thank you for those answers...

JUNE 14 CANDIDATE Q&A (CONTINUED)

#LOPSA-Live 2017-06-14

scott5	We do not have any questions queued up at present. If any of the candidates has a question they would like to ask, I'm happy to entertain it.	18:57
vt102	What do people feel the biggest NEED for the board is?	18:59
nmswede	May we inquire as to the current board's opinions on some of these questions? I don't think there is just one solution...	18:59
scott5	I don't think we have any of the current board members online.	19:00
atsaloli	I don't have any questions.	19:00
vt102	I get the sense that the members have questions about the relevancy of LOPSA, as touched on in two of the three questions here.  So, I want to work to make the national chapter more valuable to local chapters.	19:01
atsaloli	Thank you very much for organizing and running the session, folks.	19:01
vt102	I personally have found a lot of value in LOPSA, and want to help other people find that same value.	19:02
atsaloli	same!	19:02
penglish1	scott5: I'm here. I can't speak for the entire board, but for a quick answer I can say I largely agree with all of the above, and would add: our current Board size seems disproportionately large	19:02
scott5	I think the short notice and early time may have reduced the attendance. Last year was much more lively. With some extra promotion, we should see more people at the next one.	19:02
atsaloli	yep!	19:03
penglish1	but we DO need time and energy from people - either volunteers, or (as I'm trying right now) paid (as we can't provide much training) marketing intern(s), and a paid community manager	19:03
nmswede	Sounds good. Perhaps have one question that we can prep an answer for? To set off the discussion?	19:03
penglish1	Some hours, every week, on the regular. Board members can't/shouldn't be doing labor - they should be making decisions. And generally don't have time to do a bunch of extra volunteer stuff, from what I've seen/experienced myself	19:03
atsoli	*nods	19:04
penglish1	The listing in the LOPSAgram for the Community Manager position covers a lot of the "just labor" work that we've identified, that is currently being done (or not) by Board members.. and when Board members do it, supplanting the planning/decision making that they SHOULD be doing.. IMHO	19:05
vt102	I have found that lots of people want to volunteer but are then surprised when that requires effort from them!	19:06
scott5	I'm in agreement with that. I'm currently on two boards and we have a disproportionate mnount of work to do. Getting volunteers is difficult.	19:06
penglish1	Okay, my quick answer got long.  I'll stop now, unless there are further questions. FWIW, I expect to put in some volunteer labor hours once my term is up.. possibly more than I've done as a Board member	19:06
nmswede	Having a community manager would be really cool	19:06
penglish1	scott5: getting "the right sort" of volunteers in particular, in our case. We've got a GREAT technical team who put in tons of time and do a fantastic job. Not so much on the marketing, social media etc side	19:07
nmswede	It's hard to get stuff done on only volunteer time	19:07
penglish1	+1	19:07
atsaloli	I'm afraid I have to get to my next engagement.  Talk to you next week?	19:10
nmswede	Definitely	19:10
nmswede	same here	19:10
vt102	See you then!	19:10
scott5	Thanks for participating everyone. I hope the next one will be as informative.	19:10
Trev71	Thanks guys!	19:10
atsaloli	Thank you scott5 and Trev71!  thank you all!	19:11
penglish1	Thank you everyone, candidates et al	19:11
nmswede	!	19:11
vt102	Thank you!	19:11
penglish1	I also need to head off to $NEXT	19:11
druonysuse	Thank you all. This was super fun!	19:11

As mentioned in the beginning of the transcript, we also have Danielle White's answers to these questions.

With the benefit of answering these after the #LOPSA-Live session (and thank you for this opportunity) I see overlap between these questions. 

Question #1: I strongly feel that there exists interest but is from an audience who isn't seeing us right now. In part due to my role change in mid-2016, to a position where I am doing more development than operations, I found local Research Triangle chapters of some groups, such as Girl Develop IT and Women Who Code, of people in similar capacities. Generally, they don't know of LOPSA even though sysadmin tasks are part of their jobs. Locally there are employers where nobody defines themselves as a system administrator even though many are doing so.

My approach to address this is to work on getting LOPSA into those spaces and make the case for our relevance. I feel strongly that we can be of substantial benefit because what I often see there are people who are doing ops work without a lot of support, and there is a solid case that we will make.

A Research Triangle specific note: LOPSA is still listed as affiliated with North Carolina System Administrators (NC*SA) which effectively no longer exists at this point. The other group where LOPSA is known, TriLUG, does not have participation from the individuals I described above and, for a number of reasons, almost certainly will not.

Question #2: If you'll allow me to take advantage of knowing the next question I believe questions #1 and #3 are our biggest at this time. I don't wish to suggest that if we solve them we've solved it all, only that we must focus on those two right now because solving those are critical to anything more.

Question #3: I would love to say that there is a way to make LOPSA-EAST viable but I am doubtful right now. The best approach that I see here is to look for conferences that are gaining and work with them. In the Research Triangle there is All Things Open. Also, there are a number of DevOps Days conferences where we need to be.

Don't forget the second session on June 21 @ 21:00 Eastern

JUNE 14 CANDIDATE Q&A (CONTINUED)

#LOPSA-Live 2017-06-14

scott5	The next question is from Lee Damon: With the failure of LOPSA-EAST and the less-than-successful Cascadia IT Conference this year what is your plan for LOPSA to ensure higher quality/more successful conferences in the future?	18:47
scott5	Answer order:	18:47
scott5	- Andree Jacobson	18:47
scott5	- Aleksey Tsalolikhin	18:47
scott5	- Drew Adams	18:47
scott5	- Andy Cowell	18:47
nmswede	Andree Jacobson - Less frequency, more quality. Organizing conferences just to organize them - especially when the interest is down. We need to drive up the interest first, and then rediscover the need for the confernces.	18:49
nmswede	I don't know the attendance numbers for the last LISA as I was not able to go, but like someone else said, we need to be on top of the current technology. Perhaps, specializing on certain hot topics. Rather than launching a full-on conference, I'd attempt to do some sort of online forum first. Maybe, try to get involved with an online university, to offer a class.	18:51
nmswede	We could also partner with other organizations, for example - there is a Machine Learning society in San Diego, they grew to 2k members in a matter of a few months. If we did some joint meetings with them, bringing scientists together with sysadmins to build some really good systems for them, that might spark an interest. EOT	18:52
atsaloli	I love the joint meetup suggestion.  I've done a few joint meetups in LOPSA LA and that helped us get more exposure.	18:53
atsaloli	We're up to 386 members on the LOPSA LA meetup now.	18:53
atsaloli	The time Cascadia had the most attendees is when LOPSA had a marketing intern.	18:53
atsaloli	I would help get another marketing intern and do some marketing.  There is no	18:54
atsaloli	substitute for marketing to increase or generate demand.	18:54
atsaloli	EOF	18:54
druonysuse	DREW – I think we need to look for other projects and organizations that share some target demographics with us and then try to collaborate with them to cross promote or co-locate more events. Also, we need to work on the strength of local chapters and have a better way to promote the events within those local chapters. I think a major help for us would be for the LOPSA name and brand to be better recognized and have more pull. And that	18:56
druonysuse	loops me back to more of what I was talking about in my response to the last question. We need to emphasized the benefits of systems knowledge and learning in and with LOPSA no matter your job title or lack there of.	18:56
druonysuse	END	18:56
vt102	Andy Cowell:	18:56
vt102	A national organization backing a local conference, communicating with them and finding out their needs, and having the experience of supporting other regional events, should help make sure local events are more successful.  Perhaps the national organization could arrange corporate sponsorships of regional events, providing subsidies, speakers, and/or prizes?  Or just coordinating communication between other regions for	18:56
vt102	advice?	18:56
vt102	The other leaders in East Tennessee and I are forming our own 501(c)(3) LOPSA affiliate in order to receive tax deductible donations from companies (for meeting space, snacks, etc…) since we have not been able to directly receive donations as a local LOPSA chapter.  That may provide an example others can follow.	18:57
vt102	That said, I have not had experience with these issues, and would want to consult with those who have before committing to any particular path.	18:57
vt102	EOF	18:57