[OSGeo-Announce] Our huge thanks to Jeff McKenna

Dear All,

Jeff McKenna has tendered his resignation from the position of
President and Board of Directors on personal grounds.

Jeff is a pillar of OSGeo, being a lively presence at Open Source
Geospatial events since the early days of MapServer User Meetings. He
was also a key person atFOSS GRASS User Conference where the idea of
having a joint conference combining GRASS GIS, MapServer and other
FOSS4G communities was mooted which fruited in the form FOSS4G-2006
held in Laussane. Jeff has been a constant companion and a source of
inspiration during our decade long OSGeo journey.

During his tenure on the OSGeo Board, Jeff has traversed across the
globe spreading the message of OSGeo and sharing his passion for
FOSS4G. He has gone to remote corners of our planet to get local
chapters started and patiently interacted with diverse audience
ranging from under-graduate students to top leaders from academia,
industry and government. Jeff has put community before self and worked
relentlessly to bring worldwide reach to our Foundation. Combined with
his rare passion, Jeff possesses a unique knack of understanding and
assimilating different cultures which has greatly helped in nurturing
diversity in our communities.

Apart form his groundbreaking work in representing OSGeo globally, he
has also made time to produce excellent documentation and packaging
for some of our leading software products. Jeff's dedication and
passion will continue to motivate all members of our foundation.

The board received Jeff's request on 12 December 2015 and asked him to
reconsider his decision. At the 30 January, 2016 Face to Face meeting,
after careful consideration of his reply, the OSGeo Board has motioned
and unanimously accepted his resignation. The board also passed a
motion to formally express our sincere gratitude for Jeff's immense
contributions to the OSGeo Foundation in his capacity as President and
Board Member.

Jeff McKenna continues his engagements with the OSGeo Foundation as a
Charter Member and as PSC members in several of the Foundation
Projects. We look forward to seek his advice and active participation
in our future endeavors.

Thank you from all of us, Jeff and we look forward to your
contributions to OSGeo in the years ahead.

The Board of Directors
OSGeo Foundation

=== About the Open Source Geospatial Foundation ===

The Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) is a not-for-profit
organization whose mission is to foster global adoption of open
geospatial technology by being an inclusive software foundation
devoted to an open philosophy and participatory community driven
development. The foundation provides financial, organizational and
legal support to the broader open source geospatial community. It
provides an independent legal entity to which community members can
contribute code, funding and other resources, secure in the knowledge
that their contributions will be maintained for public benefit.

OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organization for the
open source geospatial community, and provides a common forum and
shared infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration. The
Foundation's projects are all freely available and useable under an
OSI-certified open source license.