Bio

I am the Executive Director of the FreeBSD Foundation, whose mission is to support the FreeBSD Open Source Project and community worldwide. For over ten years, I’ve had the privilege of working with a diverse group of people from around the world, who are passionate about making FreeBSD the best operating system available. For the Foundation, I have overall strategic and operational responsibility for our staff, programs, expansion, and execution of our mission and vision. I have over two decades of experience in engineering, program management, technical marketing and sales, operations, and recruiting. This gives me the perfect background for being able to work cross functionally, leveraging my understanding of engineering, management, and business cultures to work in various jobs in the high-tech industry. Over the years, I’ve worked in various capacities for storage related companies like Maxtor, Conner Peripherals, Seagate Technologies, and Cirrus Logic. I've used the skills I gained in firmware and software development, marketing, and applications engineering to venture out on my own, and start up a consulting company. Fast forward a few years, and now I’m running the FreeBSD Foundation. My recent focus is working with girls and women to spark their interest in engineering and computing, and encourage them to pursue careers in these fields. To help me understand the issues holding females back, I continue to research gender and unconscious bias, pipeline and retention statistics, and reasons why many girls aren’t interested in engineering and computing. I'm using what I'm learning to help create workshops for girls and women, to teach them about FreeBSD, and encourage them to get involved in our Project.