I am a Principal Software Engineer at Object Computing, Inc. (OCI), and live in the St. Louis, Missouri, USA area. Although I know and regularly use several languages, I've predominantly been programming in Java for the last ten years. I first started using Linux in 1995 and have been a strong advocate of open source software ever since. Perhaps the best example of how I've been active in improving open source software has been my work with the NetBeans Platform. I was very skeptical about the platform at first, but I quickly came to realize that it was the best way to create Java desktop applications and so I set out to try and make it even better. Since 2005 I have written documentation, reported bugs, supplied patches, given presentations and answered questions on the development mailing lists. I won the NetBeans Community Award in 2006 and now serve on the NetBeans DreamTeam and NetBeans Governance Board.