Who is Doug Vann

My blogsite has been up since April 2008 and I'm finaly adding a page to explain who I am...

BIO

Born 1971 and raised in Indianapolis Indiana.  Graduated Warren Central 1990.  Married my beautiful wife in 1996 now we have 4 children aged 8 to 13.

GEEK STORY

Got a Commodore64 in 1983. Taught myself to program in BASIC. Wrote a database app for my church in 1984 and a "what color is your parachute" app for my highschool in 1986. Took Fortran and Pascal classes in highschool.

INTERRUPTION

In 1987 I joined the StageCrew at my highscool. They had a $6 Million theatre that was 4 yrs old. I ran lights and sound and a/v equipment and loved it. It fed my inner-nerd just fine. In 1988 I was chosen to stage-manage the highschool children's production of Wind in the Willows It was a success and only increased my desire to keep doing it. Months later I was also managing the highscool musical production of WestSide Story. I enjoyed all aspects of theatre; Opera, Ballet, touring musicals, kids productions, recitals, choirs, orchestras, ALL of it! 

ENTER THE UNION

IN 1997 I joined the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Motion Picture Operators and Allied Crafts. Now I'm a journeyman member. While I'm a nerdy-techy type, much of the work we do is brute force lifting, pushing, pulling, etc. Once the show is built by dozens of people it's time for a select few to engage their brains and operate the spotlights or electronic equipment that make the show a success. Infrequent, sporadic work had me looking elsewhere which lead me back to programming!

ENTER THE "DRUPAL!"

In 2007 I was working for the largest tanning bed manufacturer in the world. I answered calls from private owners, salon owners, and servicers from across the nation. I complained about the intranet and website and was granted permission to buildout some fun and useful projects in PHP and MySQL.
When the company got purchased many were shown the door. I received my happy news 2yrs ago from the day that I am  writing this page!
I was looking for a job and I saw a puzzling ad on CraigsList for an OpenSource Developer. I took the job and turned an ASP project into a JOOMLA project, but when JOOMLA proved inadequate I accepted a bid from a DRUPAL development firm.
Also at this time the financier of the project was sending me to Lullabot DRUPAL training sessions in Portland Oregon, LA California, and Boston MA. I quickly learned how to use DRUPAL myself. When the large project we were on ended I moved on to develop websites in Drupal full time.

Working at Duo Consulting

On Friday July 24th 2009 I received a call from the CEO of www.DuoConsulting.com He saw some posts a few months earlier where I was asking for work and wanted to know if I was looking for PT, FT, Contract, or what.
LONG STORY SHORT....
After speaking with him, his CTO, and driving out the next day to their 15th floor office over looking Lake Michigan poor into the river... I took the job.
I get to develop and TRAIN in Drupal full time and I'm loving it.

Doug Vann the DRUPAL TRAINER

Within weeks of discovering Drupal I started a local Indiana Drupal Users Group.Some where along the way I became a goto guy for Drupal training. Honestly, I just love doing it. I guess it shows. My first time ever delivering a Drupal presentation in front of a group was at a Lullabot workshop in Minneapolis MN. The next month I did it again at another Lullabot workshop in Toronto Canada. Three months later I was asked to present at the Chicago DrupalCamp 2008. I wound up presenting 6 sessions and LOVED it!. In 2009 I was invited to the CMS Expo. Followed by Drupal Camps in Wisconsin, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and a fun filled weekend at the Ohio Linux Fest. Coming up in December I will be speaking at Do It With Drupal in New Olreans followed by my 2nd Chicago Drupal Camp.

Thanks for reading!
- Doug Vann - Twitter Me - LinkedIn - FaceBook