Dear Mom,

Before I left for TechEd Boston, you sent me an email lamenting the fact that you don’t know any of the people that I associate with in my work. I wanted to assure you that the .NET community is full of consummate professionals who take their work as seriously as (or even more seriously than) the professional image that they maintain in the media.

While at TechEd I took some photos of some of the biggest names in the .NET community so that you may see for yourself that I do in fact associate with some really classy folks. Some of them are Microsoft Regional Directors (RDs) like me. You can click on their pictures to go to their web sites.

Adam Cogan, RD and Chief Architect at SSW, Inc. in Sydney, Australia

Andrew Brust, RD and Chief of New Technology for Citigate Hudson (now twentysix) in New York City

Barry Gervin, RD and Principle Consultant and Instructor for ObjectSharp in Toronto, Canada

Benjamin Mitchell, RD, Author, and Independent Contractor in the UK.

Bill Vaughn, Renown Speaker and Author of books on Database and Data Access Technologies in Redmond, WA

Bill Wagner, RD and co-founder of SRT Solutions in Ann Arbor, MI

Brian Noyes, RD and Chief Architect with iDesign, Inc. and lives in the Washington DC area.

Chris Menegay is the principal consultant and trainer for Notion Solutions in Dallas, TX

Chris Pels is an MVP, president of the Boston .NET Users Group, and a board member of INETA.

David Totzke is an MVP and a .NET User Group leader for Canada's Technology Triangle.

Don Demsak (aka DonXML) is an independent consultant based in New Jersey

Dr. Neil Roodyn is an independent consultant, author, speaker, and founder of the eXtreme Programming Activity Club in Sydney, Australia.

Eric Côté is co-host of Blah Blah .NET, a French .NET podcast, and an independent consultant from Montreal.

Fernando Guerrero is an RD, and CEO and Principal Mentor at Solid Quality Learning.

Greg Low is an RD and host of the SQL Down Under podcast in Queensland, Australia.

Guy Barrette is an RD and a Solutions Architect from Montreal

Jason Follas is a Technical Architect for Perficient, Inc, and leader of the Northwest Ohio .NET Users Group in Toledo, OH.

Jeff Julian is an MVP, XML Guru, and co-leader of the Kansas City .NET User Group

Jeffrey Palermo is a Senior Software Developer for an ISV in Austin, TX and President of the Austin .NET User Group

Joe Homnick is an RD and a Certified Trainer in Boca Raton, FL

Joel Semeniuk is an RD and co-founder of ImagiNET Resources Corp, in Winnipeg, Manitoba

John Alexander is an RD and a certified trainer in Kansas City, MO

John Lam is a partner in ObjectSharp in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and a huge Ruby advocate.

Jose Barrios runs the Latin America division of INETA

Josh Holmes is a software developer, consultant, and trainer in the Great Lakes area.

Josh Trupin is the Executive Editor of MSDN Magazine in New York City

Julie Lerman is an MVP, independent consultant, author, speaker, and INETA board member from Burlington, VT

Juval Lowy is an RD and the founder of iDesign and a renowned software architect in San Jose, CA

Kirk Webb is a former alumnus of .NET Rocks! and Mondays, and now enjoys his cushy job in the IT industry.

Mario Cardinal is an MVP, software architect, and host of Blah Blah .NET in Montreal

Mark Dunn is an RD, the original co-host of .NET Rocks!, and owner of Dunn Training in Atlanta, GA

Mary Jo Foley is the author of Microsoft Watch, a very popular column on Microsoft goings-on.

Matt Ranlett is one of the Atlanta .NET Regular Guys, and a software guru in Atlanta, GA

Mauro Sant’ Anna is 2006 RD of the Year, consultant, and trainer, in Brazil.

Hey.. what the… that’s me!  Ignore that….

Michele Leroux Bustamante is an RD, author, speaker, and Chief Architect at iDesign from San Diego, CA

Miguel Castro is an MVP and an independent consultant and trainer from the New York, New Jersey area.

Noah Coad (no, really) is Program Manager of the VS Debugger in Visual Studio Team System at Microsoft in Redmond, WA

Believe it or not, Pat Hynds (RD and security consultant for Critical Sites in New Hampshire) was actually trying to make a face.

Peter Blum (pronounced BLOOM) develops high-quality (and affordable) custom controls for ASP.NET

Richard Campbell is an RD, co-host of .NET Rocks!, and a world-class technology speaker from Vancouver, BC Canada

Richard Hundhausen is an RD, author, consultant, and trainer from Boise, ID

Richard Turner is the product manager for InfoCard in the WinFX (now .NET 3.0) Strategy Group at Microsoft in Redmond, WA

Rob Howard is an RD and the founder of Telligent Systems, a solutions company specializing in Microsoft enterprise technologies in Dallas, TX. Prior to that he was on the ASP.NET team at Microsoft.

Rocky Lhotka is an RD and author of several must-have books on business objects development, and the CSLA.NET application framework, located in Minneapolis, MN

Russ Fustino is a Developer Community Champion for Microsoft in Tampa, FL who's Russ’ Tool Shed events have become the model of community events all over the world.

Sahil Malik is an MVP, author, trainer, and consultant from the DC area.

Scott Lock is the president of the Capital Area .NET User Group in Reston, VA

Scott Watermasysk (Scott W) is an RD and Director of Product Development for Telligent Systems in Dallas, TX.

Stephen Forte is an RD, and CTO/co-founder of Corzen, Inc. in New York City.

Ted Neward is an MVP and an independent consultant, instructor, and author from Sacramento, CA

Ted Pattison is developer, trainer, author, and member of Band on the Runtime. He is the principal of the Ted Pattison Group in Florida.

Tim Huckaby is the next President of the United States, an RD, and CEO of Interknowlogy in San Diego, CA

Tim Landgrave is an RD; president of eAdvantage, Inc., a Microsoft .NET architecture, design, development, and training company; and founder of the Kentucky .NET Developers Association in Louisville, KY

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Well mom, I would have taken more pictures, but my SD card filled up. What’s that? I’ll explain it to you next time we have lunch.

Your son,

Carl