About 10 years ago in August 2004 I responded to an email that Shaun had sent to registered DotNetNuke users in the 604 Area Code (Greater Vancouver). DotNetNuke was growing fast and Shaun was looking to hire an ASP.NET developer to work on the Open-Source project, so he could focus on managing the growing Community.
We met in a restaurant in Abbotsford, near where Shaun lives, and after an hour discussion/interview Shaun offered me the position. This weeks announcement of Shaun leaving DNN Corp to move onto new projects marks the end of a 10 year working relationship. I have never worked for the same employer for as long as 10 years. Shaun gave me my big break. Without my involvement with DNN it would have been much harder to gain the Industry recognition that I have achieved over the last 10 years as a Microsoft ASP.NET MVP and member of the ASPInsiders and more recently as a Pluralsight Author, and I will be eternally grateful to Shaun for the gamble he made in Aug 2004 in hiring a somewhat unproven ASP.NET developer.
I wish Joe success in taking on the leadership of the Community in his new role. But Shaun's shoes will be hard to fill and I am honoured to say that Navin has entrusted me with Shaun's architect responsibilities as I will be the new Chief Architect for DNN Corp, - "responsible for overseeing technical design and architectural practices across our product lines, ensuring good coding practices across DNN Engineering, and also responsible for implementing any new technologies we decide to bring into the company".
Although, I have been doing some of this for the last few years as Senior Architect, this resposibility is somewhat daunting. I'm not sure yet how this will all play out, but I am looking forward to an exciting future at DNN Corp.