Inspired by....

I was tagged by Mark Gilbert for an “inspiration” meme started by Josh Holmes:

Who has inspired you?
What have they inspired you to do?
Who else have they inspired?

Although there are many people that inspired me in various stages and ways of my life, I will try to keep this parsed down to those people that have inspired me in my role as a developer and more specifically a SharePoint developer.

The first person would have to be Dr. Alan Rea, of Western Michigan University. He pushed me to be what I am today and to exceed normal college expectations. He also guided me into Web consulting through non-profit experience and pushed me to pursue undergraduate research in web usability standards. I am sure he has inspired many other students to achieve loftier goals than they originally set.

The second person would have to Mark Gilbert. He shared with me many important lessons in programming that you can't always get from a book and also proved to me the value of a good working relationship with your clients. I believe that ability to have a good working relationship is what got me where I am today. I don't know how many times I have been able to pass on such meaningful bits of programming wisdom (such as using a StringBuilder instead of concatenating strings) to other developers. Mark's passion for programming has also inspired me to continue to learn and not treat programming as an 8 to 5 job that isn't fun. Programming can be fun, if it is something you like to do. Mark has inspired many other programmers through his role as president of MDSM.

The third person would have to be Jeff, a Principal Consultant at BlueGranite. He helped to foster a desire for SharePoint consulting that I don't think I would have gained on my own. He has the experience to see what a platform like SharePoint can accomplish and is not afraid to tell a client that SharePoint can't do everything (despite what some people claim). He has been an excellent mentor and a source of unending knowledge and experience. I know that he has inspired many other employees of BlueGranite and numerous other people that he has met throughout the years.

Like I said there are numberous other people that have inspired me throughout the course of my life and made me the person I am today and I am thankful to all of them.