I am very pleased to introduce you to the newest member of the Drupal Association staff: Rudy Grigar (basic). Rudy’s first day at the Association is today, but it’s certainly not the start of his Drupal or Drupal.org experience. As our DevOps Engineer, Rudy will be in charge of ensuring that Drupal.org infrastructure is optimized for security and performance.

Rudy joins us from the OSU Open Source Lab, which Drupal.org calls home. Since 2009, Rudy has learned the ins and outs of our special blend of hardware and software and is now able to focus on improvements for the community full time.

Rudy’s position is the first of many tech positions we will be hiring for here in 2014 as part of our plan to bring more resources to Drupal.org. The needs of the community have far outpaced our staff’s ability to meet them. Our intent in 2014 is to provide more staffing so that we can both accelerate the ability of our volunteers to make changes for the community and to drive initiatives forward that can’t be shouldered by volunteers. Rudy will play a critical role in both aspects.

Rudy will continue to be based in Corvallis, Oregon until we can lure him up to Portland. Please join me in welcoming him to his new role. You can reach him by email.