We have been working on building an influencer program for the VMware{code} community, much the way vExperts are influencers for IT, and after looking at multiple factors we are excited to announce our inaugural class of the VMware {code} coaches program for 2020!

So… what is a {code} coach?

A {code} coach is a member of VMware {code} who has given back to our community through active participation in blogs, slack, in person events, meetups and social media. They write {code} and are considered a Subject Matter Expert in their field. They are members of the community that others look up to and want to learn from. They are respected and well liked. After the initial class of coaches is admitted, future coaches will be decided through nomination by existing coaches.

Introducing, your new {code} coaches!

William Lam

Senior Staff Solution Architect, VMware Cloud

Twitter handle: @lamw

William Lam is a Senior Staff Solution Architect working in the VMware Cloud team within the Cloud Platform Business Unit (CPBU) at VMware. He focuses on Automation, Integration and Operation of the VMware Software Defined Datacenter (SDDC). William also has his own website where he shares his knowledge https://www.virtuallyghetto.com/ On weekends, you can see William running Spartan races!

Eric Nielsen

Senior Director, Social Media & Communities

Twitter handle: @ericnipro

Eric knows hardware and can do just about anything with a Raspberry Pi. He has his own MicroScope soldering station for SMT components and runs a weekly podcast on his YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/vbarbecue On weekends, you can find Eric at the local Palo Alto Farmers market where he sells his own honey!

Kyle Ruddy

Senior Technical Marketing Architect

Twitter handle: @kmruddy

Kyle Ruddy is a Senior Technical Marketing Architect working for VMware R&D in the Cloud Platform Business Unit. Kyle currently focuses on vSphere and VMware Cloud on AWS automation and the associated automation frameworks including all things API, CLI, and SDK. Kyle is also a Microsoft MVP and long-term vExpert. Kyle holds the unofficial record for the most unique sessions given during a single VMworld event at 16! He also has a a fan account for his beard on twitter! (@kyleruddybeard)

David Stamen

Field Solutions Architect

Twitter handle: @davidstamen

David Stamen is a Field Solutions Architect focused on VMware and Cloud solutions at Pure Storage. He blogs about all things technology at https://davidstamen.com and can be found contributing to the community at http://github.com/dstamen and on Twitter at @davidstamen.

Justin Sider

Chief Information Officer

Twitter handle: @jpsider

Justin leads the development and implementation of a tool for his current company utilizing VMware, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure for an automated provisioning & testing solution. He is a strong advocate for PowerShell and using it to automate as much as possible. Justin’s github repository and blog can be found here: https://invoke-automation.blog

https://github.com/jpsider?tab=repositories In his free time Justin loves to play golf and travel!

Michael Gasch

Staff Engineer, VMware

Twitter Handle: @embano1

Michael Gasch is a Staff Engineer in the Office of the CTO at VMware with a focus on event-driven systems, Kubernetes and service mesh. When asked what motivates him to do the work he does, Michael said, ” Growing up in communism (East Germany) before the wall came down I had to wait for my first computer (C64) until the age of 10. I was super curious and there was so much to learn but I never thought I was “smart” enough to learn a programming language like C or Java. So I doubled down on the “ops” side of IT (which is equally important of course). Many years later, when I heard about the Go programming language in the context of Kubernetes, I pushed myself to learn that language because the Kubernetes docs were missing/incomplete/outdated. Fast forward, I am a distributed systems engineer at VMware working on Service Mesh. This personal journey drives me to help everyone with a similar story and background to not be afraid and learn to code”

Eric Shanks

Senior Field Engineer

Twitter handle: @eric_shanks

Eric Shanks is a Senior Field Engineer working in the Modern Applications Platform Business Unit (MAPBU) at VMware. He has a background in vRA/vRO but currently focuses on Kubernetes and the Tanzu Portfolio and hosts his own blog at theITHollow.com. You can find Eric working on Terraform, Ansible, & Kubernetes. Eric has also written 2 Pluralsight courses on vRealize Automation. When he’s not working, you can find Eric making some BBQ or watching the Cubs!

Wouter Kursten

Professional Services Engineer

Twitter handle: @magneet_nl

Wouter is the guru if it’s about the Horizon View Powershell API’s. He created the vCheck for Horizon View and added functions to the vmware.hv.helper module. You can find is work at https://github.com/Magneet or www.retouw.nl. During business hours he works for ControlUP as Professional Services Engineer. Wouter is a WW1 nut that likes to go cycling in the Ypres area.

Michael Roy

Product Line Marketing Manager

Twitter handle: @mikeroySoft

In his own words, “By day I manage the VMware Fusion and Workstation product line, by night I am a cancan dancer.” Michael has been a part of the VMware family for over 10 years now and is Responsible for Product Management of VMware Desktop Hypervisor technology products including VMware Fusion, Workstation and Player. He focuses on developer productivity, Kubernetes, and cloud native application development

Jase McCarty

Field Solutions Architect

Twitter handle: @jasemccarty

Jase McCarty is a Field Solutions Architect at Pure Storage who has been active in the VMware community, including being a vExpert for the past decade. Jase has two published works, he co-Authored VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference – Sybex (ISBN: 0470520728) 2009 and also co-Authored VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center – Auerbach Publications (ISBN: 1420070274) in 2008. Jase is also an active blogger and you can follow his blog here: https://www.jasemccarty.com/blog/. Jase has fallen asleep driving a motorcycle, without crashing or sustaining any injuries.



Robert Kloosterhuis

Site Reliability Engineer

Twitter handle: @thefluffysysop

Robert Kloosterhuis works for ITQ, and is currently a site reliability engineer with the cloud native platforms team for the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. He is currently focused on and interested in: Tanzu (pivotal) Concourse CI/CD, Terraform, DCLI and promoting DevOps skill development for those in the traditional infrastructure roles. His other interests areas include tooling, Modern Apps and collaboration Tooling, infra-as-code, & automated documentation. Robert is very active in the #vcommunity, he speaks at events, helps organize the Dutch VNS Techcon event and blogs on his own website: http://thefluffyadmin.net/

Dan Illson

Native Cloud Advocate

Twitter Handle: @dan_illson

Dan is a Developer Advocate who is determined to help improve the “software supply chains” feeding new and existing applications. These chains stretch from the application code itself to the deployed application components. To tie all of the pieces together, Dan spends much of his time working with containers and cloud native technologies, pipeline tools, and APIs. When he’s not experimenting with code and caffeinating heavily, Dan can be found speaking at events, writing up new ideas, and occasionally mucking it up on twitter. Outside of work, Dan can be found playing or watching ice hockey, soccer, or skiing. He and his team have their own website where they share blogs, talk and code which can be found on cloudjourney.io

Luc Dekens

Former Systems Engineer

Twitter handle: @LucD22

Recently retired (as of a few months ago, congrats Luc!), Luc was a former systems engineer for almost 3 decades. Over the years, Luc started at Mainframe (OS/360, OS/370, VM) and a Dec PDP11 environment and transitioned to administering different Windows and Unix flavors. He has been using the VMware suite for several years and is currently into PowerShell & automation. Luc specializes in Automation, PowerShell, VMware, PowerCLI, Windows administration, Linux administration. Luc has been active in the VMware community and has even given talks at VMworld. After his talk last year on PowerCLI, a comment was made that because of his accent “Luc must be from Scotland” Disclaimer Luc actually lives in Belgium!

Ryan Conley

Staff Solution Engineer

Twitter handle: @ryanconley

Ryan Conley is a Staff Solution Engineer who has been at VMware for the last 5 years. He has over 17 years of technology experience in consulting, education, and finance. His current focus is on improving inefficiencies through automation and cloud native applications. He enjoys learning about Kubernetes, Service Mesh, and vSphere on Mac. He’s currently following the Tanzu portfolio and Google Anthos portfolio

We are SO excited to have such great leaders on board for this program and can’t wait to see how their influence helps {code} grow over the course of the next year! Follow them on twitter and @vmwarecode for updates and news!