2021 Candidate:
Kevin Sutter

I have been the IBM alternate for the Eclipse Board of Directors for the past several months. While participating in these meetings, I have noticed a lack of technical diversity on the Board. Although the Board is very well represented by several areas across the Eclipse Foundation, the Enterprise Java space is lacking sufficient representation -- especially with Enterprise Java now having the largest set of committers. With my broad background and experience on the Jakarta EE and MicroProfile Working Groups and various Code and Specification Projects at Eclipse, I believe that I can fill that void and well represent Enterprise Java on the Board.

Participating on the JCA (J2EE Connector Architecture) expert group back in 2001 timeframe was my first experience with Enterprise Java. My first experience with open-source code development was with OpenJPA at the Apache Foundation in 2006. From these early experiences grew my association and appreciation of true open-source development.

Over the years, I continued to explore new areas of Enterprise Java, eventually becoming IBM's representative on the Java EE Platform specification. As Java EE started to quiet down, the need for continued innovation in the Enterprise Java space was very evident. And, from that void grew MicroProfile. After much investigation and consideration, the Eclipse Foundation was chosen as the landing spot for this new MicroProfile project. And, as Oracle was looking to contribute Java EE to an open-source foundation, the Eclipse Foundation became a logical choice. I was involved with the initial creation of both of these efforts at Eclipse.

As the Eclipse affiliation section outlines, I am still very involved with both of the Jakarta EE and MicroProfile Working Groups and I look forward to helping them both succeed.