Splunk Announces Winner of 2007 SysAdmin of the Year Award

Alaska’s Matt Timken Awarded Rock Star Status for Outstanding Achievements in IT

DALLAS – November 14, 2007 – Splunk, creators of the original IT Search engine, along with other industry leaders and co-sponsors SourceForge.net, Digg, NaSPA (the Network and Systems Professionals Association), LOPSA (the League of Professional System Administrators), and USENIX/SAGE, today announced that Matt Timken of the Alaska Department of Public Safety has won the 2007 SysAdmin of the Year (SAOTY) contest. Chosen from five thousand nominations for his tireless support of hundreds of Alaska’s law enforcement agencies, Matt was awarded the grand prize including a $5000 Splunk license, an Apple MacBook Pro laptop, an all expense-paid trip to LISA, and a Gibson Explorer guitar. The award will be presented during the LISA Conference in Dallas on Wednesday, November 14, at 5:30pm CST, during the conference that runs from November 11 – 16, 2007. See all the winners at www.sysadminoftheyear.com.

The second annual Splunk-created SAOTY contest provides business professionals with a way to recognize their company’s network, system, database or application administrators. Winners of the awards were evaluated by a panel of representatives from the sponsoring organizations and other IT professionals based on the merits of administrator responsibilities, workplace attitude, how far they went above and beyond the call of duty, and acknowledgment by peers as a valuable member of the team, company or organization.

"As a company that works hard to make a system administrator’s job easier, Splunk knows first-hand how challenging and thankless their jobs can be," said Patrick McGovern, vice president, community and marketing at Splunk. "With more than 5000 nominations in its second year running, SAOTY is a wild success. It’s providing more and more people with the opportunity to recognize their peers for the heroic, selfless acts that make companies and organizations run smoothly year-round."

Nominated by his supervisor at the Alaska Department of Public Safety, Matt is a network administrator who leads a three-person network support staff responsible for meeting the IT needs of more than 850 users at 70 sites. Hundreds of other law enforcement agencies, including the Alaska State Troopers, connect directly to a network of more than 80 servers that Matt and his team maintain at multiple sites. As the lead technical resource for network security, network management and monitoring, server virtualization and technology evaluations, among other duties, Matt also finds time to mentor in-house teams of application developers and junior staff, as well as support everyone from the troopers to the Commissioner.

"I’ve worked with dozens of system administrators in many settings over the years and Matt has the best combination of skills and dedication to his users," said Lance Ahern, IT Manager, Alaska Department of Public Safety. "Being a part of a law enforcement agency is a difficult and often stressful task to which Matt dedicates long hours. He is beyond rock star – there is no ego. He always handles himself well and takes the time to understand the business requirements and issues at hand. Above all, he understands how dependent the Alaska law enforcement community is on his skills and is always willing to go the extra mile."

"I was so surprised to learn I had won this award," said SysAdmin of the Year Matt Timken of the Alaska Department of Public Safety. "Things are changing – more and more sysadmins are gaining recognition for their achievements. But, this isn’t just a one-man job. If it was, we’d never get anything done so I wish that all of my co-workers could get equal recognition for the long hours they spend in the trenches ensuring services are up."

Additional SysAdmins Honored

    Three Runners-Up received an Apple iPhone
  • Hank Arnold of Hospice
  • Wes Craig of University of Michigan
  • Ryan Langseth of InvisiMax

    • Ten Honorable Mentions received a case of Red Bull
  • Jason Boyer of EchoStorm
  • Brad Myers of ADNET Systems
  • Sonny Sarai of Digital Ocean Marketing
  • James Schwonek of the City of St. Petersburg
  • Jonathan Heller of The Love Botswana Outreach Mission
  • Randy Brogen of CResaPartners
  • Karen Fernsler of NCSA
  • Patrick O’Grady of EM Communication
  • Bradley Heilbrun of You Tube
  • Michael Oberg of The National Center for Atmospheric Research

All the winning nominations can be seen at www.sysadminoftheyear.com.