John Mark Walker

Bio

A long, long time ago (32 years), in a galaxy far, far away (Texas), John Mark Walker was born to a Southern Baptist minister Father and church musician Mother. One day, he discovered a brand new copy of Red Hat Linux 5.0 and started evangelizing to his friends. Before he knew it, he was sucked into a career path. At VA Research/Linux Systems/Software/OSDN/OSTG, he was a developer on valinux.com, member of the community team, and then became intimately acquainted with the beast known as SourceForge.net Foundries.

When the axe ultimately fell at VA, he migrated to computer book publisher No Starch Press as Acquisitions Editor, which is really just fancy language for "Author Shmoozer". A startup came calling, GroundWork Open Source, and he was back in high tech cubeville in a developer relations suit. Uh... he said, "relations". In the blink of an eye, IDG World Expo, seeking a conference director for LinuxWorld, swooped in and snatched him. He is now burrowed deep inside the bat cave, working feverishly to make sure that LinuxWorld learns how to party like it's 1999.

When he's not working on LinuxWorld, GridWorld, or OSBC, John Mark spends time teaching his 19-month-old daughter mad soccer skillz, trying not to upset his wife, Cathy, volunteering for the San Francisco Seals soccer team, planning for the 2006 World Cup, doing neat things with Kubuntu, and generally committing to doing things that he doesn't actually have time for. Oh yeah, and he likes soccer. And beer. Sweet precious beer. Seriously, I wouldn't want to stand between him and a bottle of Girardin Gueze.