I heard the news this week, and I’m still sad. Karla Landrum is leaving PASS after five years of acting as the Community Evangelist.

Thank you, Karla, for all you’ve done.

In the last five years, we’ve seen tremendous growth in the SQL Saturday franchise, as well as other chapters. Most of that has to do with Karla’s work ethic and success in supporting even organizers all over the globe.

When Andy Warren and I transferred the SQL Saturday franchise to PASS, we were hoping that the organization would provide a bit more support and help in organizing events. Our expectations were wildly exceeded with tremendous growth in the number of events. In 2010, when we transferred the responsibility, there had been 26 events held. That was across the span from Oct 2007 to Mar 2010.

That tremendous growth in 2011-2015 is Karla. Even this year is on pace to exceed last year’s event total.

All of you that have attended, spoken at, or learned something from a SQL Saturday should send a thank you to Karla for your tireless advocacy and help in ensuring that many of us could get free training almost every weekend somewhere in the world.

Karla will be missed by many of us, and I just wanted to publicly thank her and let her know how much I’ve enjoyed working with her over the years.

I hope PASS can find someone that can continue her work in growing our SQL Server community.

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