Three Badges and a Lot of Help

V-RodDBA · Community

Three Badges and a Lot of Help

Sessionize Most Active Speaker 2025, and Redgate Community Ambassador two years running

This started in 2016, at my first SQL Saturday, in Chicago. I didn't know anyone. Andy Yun did, and introduced me to Hope Foley, and that was more or less it — ten years later I'm holding three badges I didn't see coming.

The following year I ended up on the Alaskan SQL Cruise with Tim Ford, and spent most of it with a full case of impostor syndrome — first year going to any major SQL event, surrounded by that much talent. It didn't really click until PASS Summit 2019, walking through the vendor expo with some coworkers. We passed the Microsoft booth, and Bob Ward greeted me. By name.

Attending was one thing; speaking was another. That took until PASS Summit 2022, where apparently everyone I talked to wanted to know why I didn't have a Speaker Ribbon on my badge. Jeff Taylor was the one who actually did something about it — "Submit to Jacksonville, and I'll give you a spot." That's the whole pitch that started my speaking career. PASS 2022 is also where I met Jason Romans and his wife Sheila, which turned into a real friendship; Jason started his own speaking journey the next year, at SQL Saturday Jacksonville 2023.

Sessionize sent me a badge earlier this year for all of that: Most Active Speaker, 2025.

The Redgate Ambassador title — the second year in a row now — has a good story behind it. Redgate Summit, Chicago, last March. Sitting at lunch, someone from Redgate introduced me to the table as a Community Ambassador — which, at that point, I was not. I wish I remembered who it was. I got home, applied for the actual program, and Louise Domeisen accepted me into it.

None of it happened alone.

Here's what the badges are, what they're actually for, and who I owe for them.

The Badges

Sessionize — Most Active Speaker, 2025. Based on submissions and sessions tracked through the platform over the year.

Redgate — Community Ambassador, 2025. For showing up to and supporting Redgate community events.

Redgate — Community Ambassador, 2026. Same reason, back for a second year.

Two badges, one program — Redgate hands the Ambassador title out annually, not as a lifetime achievement.

By the Numbers

2025 was 4 events and 4 presentations — SQL Saturday Jacksonville, Data Saturday Columbus, SQL Saturday St. Louis, and SQL Saturday Oregon & SW Washington. Not a huge number by conference-circuit standards, but apparently enough to move the needle on Sessionize's side of things. My full speaking CV has the rest of the history if you want it.

People Who Actually Earned This

Nobody gets a "most active speaker" badge by submitting to an empty inbox. Event organizers accepted the sessions, program committees picked the room and the time slot, and the people in the audience showed up and asked questions that made the next version of the presentation better. Ambassador is worse — that one's entirely about who invited me to the events in the first place.

Event & community organizers

• Andy Yun, SQLBek — the first friendly face at my first SQL Saturday, Chicago 2016, and the reason I met half the people on this list (sqlbek.wordpress.com)

• Jeff Taylor, JaxData — talked me into submitting my first session at PASS Summit 2022, and gave me my first speaking slot at SQL Saturday Jacksonville (jefftaylor.io)

• Peter Shore, CBusDATA — met somewhere on the Midwest SQL Saturday circuit — Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cleveland, Cincinnati, one of those. Spent years after that trying to get me on a CBusDATA agenda. (Peter Shore @ Sessionize)

• Tim Ford, Tech Outbound — welcomed me on SQL Cruise Alaska 2017 alongside Bob Ward, Grant Fritchey, Andy Yun, and so many others. (thesqlagentman.com)

Redgate

• Louise Domeisen, Redgate — accepted my application into the Community Ambassador program, making the lunch-table introduction retroactively true (Redgate blog)

• Steve Jones, Redgate — one of the original founders of SQL Saturday, still running the show today as Day of Data (voiceofthedba.com)

Fellow speakers & Microsoft folks

• Ben Miller — his two-day PowerShell precon ahead of SQL Saturday Indy kicked off my whole PowerShell learning journey (dbaduck.com)

• Bob Ward, Microsoft — greeted me by name at the PASS Summit 2019 expo hall, which did more for my impostor syndrome than he probably knows (SQL Server blog)

• Hope Foley, Microsoft — the first person Andy introduced me to that day in Chicago, back when I didn't know a soul in this community (Hope Foley @ Sessionize)

• Jason Romans, The Data Shepherd — friend since PASS Summit 2022, started his own speaking journey at SQL Saturday Jacksonville 2023 (datashepherd.dev)

This list is not complete. If you helped and you're not on it, that's a memory problem, not a gratitude problem.

The plan for 2026 and beyond is more of the same — more events, more sessions, more #SQLFamily. If you're running an event and need a speaker, my Sessionize profile is public.

V-RodDBA · August 2026 · Sessionize Profile