Thank You, Don Box

Friday, 11/16/01

Last night, in the middle of .NET Band on the Runtime set, Don announced his retirement from DevelopMentor and training. He’s sorry to be leaving us, of course, as we are to lose him, but he’s excited about doing new things. Running a company gets more consuming as a company gets more successful and Don certainly brought DevelopMentor a great deal of success. And not only did he run his part of the company, but he also brought a amount of rigor and insight to an amazing range of technology topics, including C++, COM, DCOM, RPC, XML, Java and .NET, heretofore unprecedented in the training industry. He turned the phrase “them that can’t; teach” on its ear. But these are things that are well-known of Don.

What is perhaps not so well known is the care and dedication that he had for his friends and colleagues. He worked hard to turn his personal success into opportunities for the other technical staff members at DevelopMentor. And he succeeded. He paved the way for people like Ted Pattison, Keith Brown, Tim Ewald, Aaron Skonnard, Martin Gudgin and a host of others who’s made a name for themselves in this industry. Of course, I’m also on this list. If you look at the things that I’ve got listed on this site, i.e. books, articles, courses, conference talks, etc, a staggering amount of it was enabled either directly or indirectly by Don Box. He’s an amazing man and it’s been an honor and a privilege to work with him these last six years. They’re been the richest of my career and of my life. And for that, I’d like to thank him.

Before we get too blubbery, Don has assured the world that he will continue to pursue technology and to communicate it to an eager audience. I, for one, look forward to what he decides to do next. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be uniquely Don.