On July 1st around 11:30, I received an email with the subject of “Congratulations 2009 Microsoft MVP!”  To say I was stunned would be putting it lightly.   Over the past few days, a number of my friends have announced that they were not being renewed as MVPs, so honestly the closer it got to July 1st, the more I convinced myself that I wouldn’t be one of those receiving the award this quarter. 

For my friends that don’t know about the MVP Program, here’s a snippet from the email I received:

“This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others.”

As I said, I was pretty shocked when that email arrived in my inbox.  What’s really cool is that around the same time, my friend Nate received the same email.   I was also pleased to find out my friend John Stockton (no, not the basketball player) also received the award.

I gotta thank a few people because as cheesy as it sounds, I couldn’t have done it alone.

The first person I need to thank is Dustin Campbell.  After I complained on a mailing list about how I was too far from user groups to attend / speak, Dustin approached me at Codemash 2008 and said (his exact words), “Dude, don’t be a p****.  Get out there and speak.”  Keep in mind that at the time, Dustin was kind of a big deal around Heartland, so who was I to argue.   Anyway, Dustin, thanks for motivating me to get off my ass and into the community.

Over the past couple of years, Josh Holmes has gone from being “that guy from Microsoft” to a close friend and mentor.  He has been a guiding force in my development in the community since my first user group talk in Toledo in February 2008.  Josh, thanks for being there.

Jim Holmes and Mike Wood have both been inspirations and without leaders like them in the community, I probably would have stopped being so involved a long time ago.

Nate, James, Jayme, Sean and Dave have helped keep me grounded during my speaking “tours” and making me realize how important it is to “do something”, not just talk.

Thanks to the Microsoft evangelists (Jeff, Jennifer and Brian) in my region for being such great supporters of our dev community.

Big thanks to my family for being so supportive while I traveled all over to attend / speak at some really cool events.

There are so many others, but I know I’ll forget someone, so we’ll leave it at this: thanks everyone.