Ramblings about Mentorship…

I was awarded with an Oracle ACE award last Thursday, nominated by my “mentor” (as I internally refer to him) Mark D Drake, Senior Product Manager, XML Technologies, Oracle Server Technology. The ACE Award is, amongst others, acknowledged for significant contribution and activity in the Oracle technical community. I see it as an award for my mentorship towards others.

But mentors need great mentors them self before they can teach others… I will hereby honor some of my hero’s who (amongst others technically) inspired me:

My first mentor Lex Takens (aka “reLex” Takens), my first DBA mentor that you really, really needed to personally understand before you were able to deduct that he was “in stress” (and this was not very often). I learned a lot from him. Also a guy called Cees de Haan, who helped me with my first steps in PL/SQL land (debugging it).

Guys who inspired me to excel and “think out of the box”, two brilliant developers I had the privilege to work with during my first AMIS period: Erwin Brinkhuis and Ate Douma.

People that inspired me as a DBA the last 4 years (some far earlier, but since the internet age, communication is becoming easier and easier), to just name a few: Steve Adams, Cary Millsap, Anjo Kolk, Carel Jan Engel, Jeroen Evers, Toon Koppelaars, Jonathan Lewis, Laurent Schneider, the Guys from Pythian (especially Alex) and the strange Celtic Guy and his Cuddly stuff: Doug Burns. Probably he doesn’t want any credit, but I owe that Scott, regarding taking the time to hear (and participate) in my Ramblings, Rants, strange Dutch humor and Reflections. Something you tend to do when you getting old 😉

There are lot’s and lot’s of more people, colleagues at AMIS and others I have the privilege to meet via the internet or via conferences. In all they all have one thing in common: their enthusiasm and willingness to share their ideas (…and be open for other ideas). Ehhh, okay, thats two (or three?)…anyway…

For now, back to work, there is still a lot to do and learn.

😎

Some statistics for prosperity: Number 172 Worldwide, the 9th Dutch Guy, the 1st one (as far as I know) merited for “Oracle XMLDB”