For those that have not met Patrick, let me take a moment to introduce him.  Patrick has been assisting with this meetup group and our sister organization, GDG Cincinnati, for many years.  He is responsible for so many of our fantastic presentations, has supplied both space and food.  He has provided door prizes and participated in many of our coding challenges.  Until recently he was working behind the scenes to help me keep things on track.  Over the past couple of months he has been wrangling control from me -- not an easy thing :)

I'll follow that by also taking a moment to thank Matt Vorst for taking the time to found this group 4 years ago this month!

I owe much of who I am today to both of their professional and personal mentoring.  As such, I have positioned myself as an Android Consultant free of the confines of a rooted location on a map or a cubicle.  I will be moving to the beach to write code with my dog.  For those of you that know me you know that this is many years in the planning and I am so very excited for the opportunity to finally take the leap.

I will dearly miss so many of you and our interactions at meetups, beer tours, coding challenges, et al.  Rest assured, however, that this group is in more capable hands than my own and I look forward to visiting as a participant in the future and seeing how you all have flourished.

So, this is farewell.  Go forward and build apps.

Bill Mote

[address removed]