LOPSA News

I have management and leadership experience. I started in tech support and worked my way up to Director of Operations. I now run a training company that trains sysadmins, DevOps engineers, and adjacent professions. I've also run the Los Angeles chapter of LOPSA ( https://www.meetup.com/lopsala/ ) since Sep 28, 2012 and we're now up to 374 members.

I've been attending USENIX conferences since my sysadmin career started in 1996 and I've been a member of LOPSA over 10 years. USENIX, SAGE and LOPSA are key ingredients in my professional success. I got into professional training through LOPSA: Lois B. Bennett tapped me to teach CFEngine at LOPSA University at Ohio Linux Fest in 2010. After this, in 2011, Mark Burgess asked me to cover his CFEngine class at USENIX ATC. Since then, I've been all over North America teaching hundreds of sysadmins at conferences and in corporate on-site classes.

I believe sysadmins are valuable because they do what it takes to keep the show on the road. Ours is an increasingly computerized civilization and Operations Engineers keep it going to no small extent.

I enjoy mentoring and apprenticing system administrators. LOPSA recognized this and awarded me Mentor of the Year in 2011.

I enjoy the sysadmin community so when the Leadership Committee came calling this year I knew I couldn't say "no, I'm busy" again. Yes, I'm busy, but LOPSA is an important part of my life. I must do more to support it.

Aleksey Tsalolikhin

The Leadership Committee is changing the timeline to allow more time to prepare the candidate slate and LOPSA Live sessions.

This allows a little more time for candidate nominations! If you'd like to nominate yourself or another member, please e-mail the Leadership Committee. The revised schedule is below:

June 9 - Final candidate slate and election open

June 30 - Close election

We'll send additional communications once LOPSA Live sessions are scheduled.

Your Leadership Committee has been working diligently behind the scenes to get you a strong candidate slate for the 2017 election! Your participation is key to us having a strong organization -- please plan to take part in the election. Here's our election timeline:

May 15 - Final slate and candidate statements

May 18 - LOPSA Live

May 31 - LOPSA Live

June 1 - Open election (Election can't open later than June 9)

June 23 - Close election (June 30 at the latest)

I was notified by John's son that he passed away on Jan 14th.  John was not only a very active member of LOPSA, its board, and the system admin community, but he was also an incredible friend and a mentor to me. John was always optimistic, kind, considerate, and willing to help anyone who asked.

John passed on his knowledge via his stories of working both as a system admin and in his previous career as a machinist and by posting at http://blogs.lopsa.org.  He was a typical system admin of his era with no formal training, just a fascination of computers and a talent for troubleshooting their problems.  He was as master at making systems work long past their EOL date as evidenced by his work on keeping SCO systems running at his job.

Even though John had health issues, I was constantly amazed how he never let them slow him down.  At the age most of us would be happy to retire he was still on the board, actively coaching football, and working. Many of you saw him at LISA in Boston.  A few days after the conference he had open heart surgery to replace a blocked artery.  I talked with John last week and he was so happy as he had more energy than he had in years and was looking forward to attending more conferences and keeping his "little hacker" of a granddaughter out of trouble.

John, I miss you very much.  Peace be with you.

Ski 

The elections for the 2016 LOPSA Board of Directors have concluded. The winners are George Beech, Brian Globerman, Scott Suehle, Thomas Uphill, and Steven VanDevender.

Big thanks to the Leadership Committee team and the candidates for their time. Without them, we would not have had an election.

The Leadership Committee is pleased to announce that they have opened the 2016 LOPSA board member elections.

Before voting, please take a moment to review the first and second LOPSALive sessions, where the candidates answered LOPSA member questions. Finally, review all the candidate statements.

Vote before the LC closes the polls on June 23 at 12:00AM Eastern.

Here is the chat log from tonight's LOPSA Live session.  Thank you to our moderator, our candidates, and our attendees!

Here is the chat log from tonight's LOPSA Live session.  Thank you to our moderator, our candidates, and our attendees!

Your Leadership Committee (LC) has been hard at work preparing our candidates for the upcoming election. Incumbent Board Members John Boris and Matt Disney will not be running for re-election. 

For this election, we have five seats to be filled and six candidates running. Our candidate slate follows:

• Brian Globerman - Candidate Statement
  
• George Beech (Incumbent) - Candidate Statement
  
• Scott Suehle - Candidate Statement
  
• Steven VanDevender (Incumbent) - Candidate Statement
  
• Thomas Uphill (Incumbent) - Candidate Statement
  
• Trevor Thorpe - Candidate Statement
  

Hello to one and all. Thank you for considering my for a candidacy for the LOPSA Board. In comparison to the others on this ballot I am a relative newbie but I bring a large history in customer facing and community roles. I believe this history and experience can benefit myself and this organization going forward to the future. 

I believe that an organization is only as strong as those that support it and the base we have here is great but like any organization there is always room for improvement. To grow that we need to get out to the community and make sure they know their voice is heard and known. I believe my experience here will be beneficial. The community is strong, but it can always be stronger. The key foundations of the organization need to be built on and fortified. Mentor-ship, Education, and Involvement in the community are where it starts. 

If elected I will work tirelessly to help promote and foster the great things we have done and the great things we have yet to accomplish. Help the current generation of System Administrators and help locate and educate the future generations.