With Great Anticipation!

I am on the edge of my seat with excitement about this year's Grace
Hopper conference.  The first time I went was in 1997 in San Jose. I
was a recent graduate from Purdue University and enjoying my plunge
into the  tech market place. I'd always been involved in college with
groups like Women in Computer Science and Women in the School of
Science, but wasn't sure where to find the support that I was used to
in the "real world".  My mentor from Purdue, Barbara Clark, recommended
I go to the 1997 conference - and wow, it was an eye opener!  For
reasons I cannot begin to even fathom, I somehow managed to miss all
the next Grace Hopper conferences until last year's in Orlando FL. I
have been missing out! I love the camaraderie, getting updates on
fascinating technical topics, and learning about new job skills and job
markets.  This year I'll be a panelist on women in Open Source, as well
as blogging.  I'm a staff engineer at Sun Microsystems, currently still
heavily involved with computer security and in particular the Solaris
Cryptographic Framework project.  You'll see me a lot on the
opensolaris.org mailing aliases, and often making updates to the
documentation for external (and internal) contributors.

(a copy of this blog appeared on  the official Grace Hopper blog)

Valerie Fenwick