In many ways, personally and professionally, 2017 has been a fantastic year for me.  Here is just some of the highlights: 

• Started Charlotte Xamarin Developers meetup group.  As of today, we have 102 members.  I have big plans for this group in 2018
• Continued leading Modern Devs Charlotte meetup group. As of today, we have 1,007 members.
• Presented at 13 conferences/events on Angular, .NET/.NET Core, ASP.NET/ASP.NET Core, Xamarin, and Azure
• Awarded the Telerik/Progress Developer Expert designation
• Received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award in the Visual Studio and Development Technologies category
• Interviewed for the podcast Developer On Fire
• Visited Alaska for the first time
• Started a new position as Director of Engineering at SentryOne
• My son graduated from college with a BS in Computer Science and will start fulltime in 2018 as a Jr. Software Engineer at SentryOne
• and many more…

As I reflect on this past year, there is no doubt I have been extremely blessed and I am thankful.  I have had some incredible experiences and have met some incredible people.  Many have given me opportunities, helped me, and put their trust and faith in me. I could not have done it without your support.  To you I say “Thank You!”

Looking forward to 2018, I plan to do even more to give back.  The tech community is a real passion of mine.  I find it incredibly exciting to share what I have learned and see others use that knowledge to do great things.

So 2017, I bid you farewell, it has been fantastic.  To 2018, watch out, I am “going hard” to make it even more fantastic than 2017.

Keep Right’in Code!

Richard