Friends in High Places -- Visual Studio Magazine

Desmond File

Friends in High Places

If you've been reading Redmond Developer News the past couple years, you may recall seeing the name Andrew Brust in our pages from time to time. As chief of New Technology at consulting firm twentysix New York, vice chairman of the New York Software Industry Association and a Microsoft Regional Director (RD), Brust is a leading light in .NET development.

He also happens to be an active contributor to our VSLive! family of developer conferences, serving as conference chair of the VSLive! New York show earlier this month. It's no surprise, given the breadth of his technical acumen, that our editors often turn to Brust to help us place the events of the day into context for our audience of Microsoft- and .NET-aligned development managers.

As it turns out, we're not the only ones to recognize what Brust has been up to in the industry. Microsoft recently honored him as the 2008 Microsoft Regional Director of the Year. The award, presented at Microsoft's Tech-Ed Developer Conference back in June, singled out Brust as the top RD in the world. For a little perspective, there are 150 RDs worldwide.

In a statement, Microsoft Regional Director Program Manager Kevin Schuler said: "I deeply admire Andrew's intellectual approach to problem solving, his sharp business acumen, and his never-ending drive for fairness. We all benefit greatly from his participation in the Regional Director Program."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Whether diving into the arcana of individual program languages or assessing the impact of broad vendor platform strategies, Brust has always brought an articulate, informed and critical understanding to our discussions with him.

With VSLive! New York behind us and the hectic Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) season ramping up, I wanted to take a minute to congratulate Brust for an honor well-earned.

Posted by Michael Desmond on 09/25/2008

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