The INETA community is built by the involvement and efforts that many individuals make in their local, regional, and the broader .NET Development Community. In many cases, members' involvement in the community has in no small part contributed to recognition for MVP and Regional Director Awards. Exposure through such involvement has also helped many people to advance their careers to more senior positions and new job opportunities.

While it's great to see the success of our community, it's often bitter sweet. For example, over the years a number of our speakers and volunteers have been hired by Microsoft, now including INETA President and Speaker Bureau member Daniel Egan.

We're very excited for Daniel who has accepted a Developer Evangelist position with Microsoft, and has stepped down as President of INETA North America. While we congratulate Daniel on this great opportunity, we'll miss his leadership and direct involvement in the organization. Fortunately in the Developer Evangelist role, Daniel will continue to be heavily involved in community and user groups throughout the South Western US.

In Daniel's place, I am honored to have been elected to the position of President and will immediately be stepping into the role. There is a lot going on right now as our teams work to roll out a variety of new projects this fall, while continuing to keep the existing projects running smoothly. We will be leaning on some of our key volunteers and Assistant VP's to help cover the vacancies until we refill our slate of Directors in elections next spring.

As I transition from my role on the Technology team, I would like to extend an invitation to all of you to get more involved with INETA. We're an organization of volunteers that achieves success through the hard work and creativity of our diverse base of volunteers and members. We have many opportunities on our ongoing projects where new volunteers are continually needed. From writing ASP.NET and Silverlight code, to helping our marketing team we have a lot of exciting opportunities for you to get involved. I am looking forward to many more of you getting involved in building our growing community, and seeing where the future may lead us!

Rob Zelt
President, INETA NorAm
rob.zelt@ineta.org
INETA - The Face of .NET

-- from the INETA NorAm October 2008 Newsletter