A few days ago, Anthony Reimer posted to his blog about Recognition, Retirement, and Remembrance. I suggest you give it a read. I don’t have much to say about Retirement and Remembrance, but I do feel I have a lot to say about recognition. While we don’t have any formal place to acknowledge recognition, I feel I can do so here.

First off, I should thank:

• Anthony Reimer

I’ve gotten to know Anthony over the past few years. My last trip to MacAdmins we got to spend some time together in person and chat about everything and anything. He’s very knowledgable and extremely supportive of the community. While he’s not in Toronto, he does hang out in #toronto on slack, which has led to us getting to know one another better. Since the pandemic, he’s been coming to #toronto’s virtual meetups helping to bring a cross-Canada presence to the group. He’s also one of the few EDU folks, as such, faces a lot of the things I do.

I guess if we’re talking about one person in #toronto, we should talk about more:

• Nathan, David, Jim, and Brad
• Brian, François, Armin, “Gerk,” Meg, Colin, Ron, Nick, Dave, Ben, Alex, Sean, Codey, Dmitriy, Joseph, Ross, MatX, and Jason (and more who I’ve probably missed)

I’m trying to be careful here and respect people’s privacy. So I’m just putting down first names, or for someone who once requested in another blog post that I just use his screen name, I’ve used his screen name. The first group of people are on the MacBrainedYYZ committee with me. Together we plan meetups and these people are kind, funny, and wonderful to deal with. Together we have a fantastic group and they help keep #toronto a lively place with a lot of energy. When I first joined #toronto, it was dead. There was no one there.

They’ve helped open the doors to a lot of the people in the second row. I’d already really like to acknowledge Brian for always knowing everything I could ever want about Google Workspace. François for always being around for troubleshooting, and reminding me to file bug reports with Apple. Armin and Gerk for their incredible knowledge for scripting and always being happy to help with a novice like me.

I did a brief co-op during my high school days at Apple Canada. I worked with quite a few people there, most I bet are not at Apple any more. This was 1998 after all. But I’m going to thank:

• Tony
• Greg

I’ve got to work with some incredible people under me at my current place of employment, in chronological order:

• Daniel
• Shaun
• Audrie

They’ve been fantastic. I’m really lucky to have worked with these three, and they’ve helped me out so much. They all have a very different set of skills and are all awesome.

When I worked at an Apple Authorized Reseller, I got to work with some great people, amongst those I want to point out:

• Graeme
• Vince

Graeme, Vince and I got really close and have forged a deep friendship. We all now work in EDU and are there to always help one another out.

MacAdmins community members not in #toronto:

• Robert
• Adam
• Rich Trouton

Robert is always there to provide advice and is a fantastic sounding board. I recall my first time speaking at Penn State, he was in the room as I was preparing, and was able to offer his sage wisdom.

Adam just seems to know everything about everything. He’s the top contributor in #mosyle and one of the admins for the whole MacAdmins slack. Rich is just an endless resource of both hard and soft skills for MacAdmins, his documentation sessions at Penn State are both hilarious and informative. He’s also so open to share.

Former boss:

• Matthew

A great guy, but also, I don’t think I’d have a career without him and his guidance.

All of you get, what I’m going to call this award, an Ankie. This is a community worth recognizing, so thank you all.