Position statement for Joe Conway

I am Joe Conway, and I am running for election to the SPI Board of Directors.

I have been an active member of an SPI-affiliated project, PostgreSQL, since some time in 1998. I have contributed many significant features, vetted and applied even more patches written by others, and fixed plenty of bugs.

In 2003 I was made a committer, and in 2014 I joined the PostgreSQL System Administration team. I help and maintain about 100 machines of the PostgreSQL Project, moderate several mailing lists, and push major and minor releases. My other open source project participation includes PL/R (R language handler for PostgreSQL, author/maintainer) as well as a bunch of other useful PostgreSQL extensions.

I have been a past Director of the United States PostgreSQL Association, and am a founding/continuing member of the PostgreSQL Funds Group, which is the PostgreSQL project interface to SPI.

As a speaker, trainer, and occasional organizer at numerous conferences around the world, including most of the major PostgreSQL related ones, FOSDEM, SCaLE, UseR, and FOSS4G, I have had the opportunity to meet a vast number of the users of the various open source technologies that I work on. In doing so, I have gained a broad understanding of open source projects, technologies, and the individuals behind them.

In my professional career, I am currently "Vice President, PostgreSQL Engineering" for Crunchy Data, a PostgreSQL support, services, training, and sponsored development organization formed entirely around and committed to Open Source and PostgreSQL.

Software in the Public Interest is ideally placed to influence Open Source technology adoption, education, and understanding. As a member of the SPI board, I would be focused on promoting Open Source, ensuring all Associated Projects are supported as well as possible, and expand SPI by encouraging new open source projects to join. I am excited to be a part of SPI and look forward to helping move SPI forward materially through involvement as a board member. I can add valuable and necessary skills to the board, thanks to the experience and knowledge which I bring.

I live and work in the Florida, USA area, in the US/Eastern time zone. I am available on Freenode as jconway or Twitter direct message @josepheconway.