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Volunteer Profile: Tom Bryan

Tom is a member of our technology team, which develops free software to power the EcoAccess web site. Among many other contributions of his time and talent, he is a master of exploring and explaining the intricacies of software packages like cvs and RPM so that others on our technology team can be productive.

He writes:

I first heard about EcoAccess during a meeting with a potential employer. He was familiar with the EcoAccess project and told me about it when I mentioned my interest in relational databases and the Python programming language (both used by EcoAccess). As someone who tries to "leave a small ecological footprint", I was happy to work on a project that shares similar goals. The project also gives me an excuse to play with some neat technology (Zope, PostgreSQL, Python, RPM, etc.) with a great group of volunteers.

I was at graduate school, working toward a Ph.D. in a very abstract branch of mathematics when I discovered that I loved programming. Before long, I had left graduate school with a Master's in mathematics and was working with computers. I worked as a researcher at a military-funded university lab while I learned more about programming and computers. During this time, I discovered (though my co-workers and the Internet) the Open Source development community. The sociological aspects of this development model were fascinating to me from the very beginning. Once I was involved with this community, I found that I could gain experience with very sophisticated software at little cost (other than time and effort).

I am now a senior software engineer with a company that makes large data management systems for utility companies, but I like to stay involved with Open Source projects to learn from other developers and gain experience with new technologies. The development projects on EcoAccess are better-managed and more satisfying than any commercial software project that I've worked on yet.

Tom Bryan
Raleigh, North Carolina
February 2002

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http://ecoaccess.org/about/tbryan.html
Last update: 2002/11/14 02:07 US/Eastern


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