Phew is right. I could have talked about brewing with Joe and Andy Hudacek. That would have burned that time up.
I don’t think that would have helped your election cause! 
Haha I guess I should have stated I’m a software developer then 
To tell ya the truth, it makes no difference to me what a GC candidate does in “real life”. It’s not like an IT person on the GC is gonna do any IT work for the AHA, although an understanding might be helpful. For GC candidates, I look for commitment to the hobby and the people who practice it, not to mention an indication of a personality that fits in well when working with a group.
That was pretty much my thinking… Which is why I didn’t mention it at all in my bio
That could be Drew. They live in the next town over, and it was a crazy fun morning. They were doing 4 10 gallon batches that day, brewing in parallel on 2 systems.
Their Oktoberfest party is a blast. Ask John Palmer about it.
Dkflick, good thing you dodged the bullet of being interviewed by JZ. Your user name would have derailed the whole show from the beginning
I’m not on the list, but my infinitely more qualified wife is! (Roxanne Westendorf)
I know Denny doesn’t care what a candidates real job is, but I’ll make my pitch that Roxanne’s deep background in consumer research has totally changed the way the AHA, and to a lesser extent the BA, conducts it’s member polls. That’s producing real changes in member service. That’s all the promotion I’ll do, I promise!
It’s actually even worse as it actually is sans the ‘L’. Lol. German exchange students always enjoyed my last name…
When I was in Germany, another engineer with the last name of Fickes traveled over for a series of meetings. Much hilarity ensued.
Haha yeah I can imagine. The joys of having names with alternative meanings… lol
I guess it’s my immature humor meets my dyslexia lol
You know I mostly agree. And I wouldn’t want a bunch of techy IT people on the GC because IT system design should generally be guided by non-IT people (because they will be used by non-IT people). But that’s just a minor consideration anyway.
As far as commitment to the hobby and those who practice it, certainly, but man the field is full of qualified people this year.
I gotta say I disagree with that. The worst managers I’ve ever had have been non-technical. You really need to have some idea how things work to properly guide a project along the right path. Not that any of that applies to the GC… Just my 2 cents on non-technical people managing software projects.
A non technical manager is fine as long as they understand that while they can guide the design of the interface and the feel of the project they have to leave the guts up to the tech lead.
The non-technical manager says “This is what it should look like and what it should do” and trust that her choice of tech lead was correct and they will be able to create a plan to make that happen in an efficient way.
It’s been an odd experience this year for me because I moved from that tech lead position to a more high level lead and I have had to learn how to let go of the “how” and trust my programmers.
I agree IT project managers should be technical. I’m just saying successful project managers should rely heavily on non-technical input when making design decisions. Technical capability needs to meet end user needs - not the other way around. If it doesn’t meet end user needs, the final product is in danger of failing.
Anyway, way to get us off topic Jimmy.
Ya know, Rob, at least in Roxanne’s case her real life job does make a difference. Her expertise has really helped the GC find a focus on a lot of issues.
I can vouch for Craig Hendry. He was a founder of Mississippi’s Raise Your Pints and is now president. In Craig’s first year as president he decided it was time to lift our home brew ban and he got it done. He has done a lot more than that for our hobby (check out his bio.)
Her old job, that is. She took early retirement. :) For this group, it means she is spending more time on AHA and BJCP stuff.