Well, I grew up on my grandparents farm in a small town called Hermagor in the state of Carinthia in Austria.

I am married to a great wife with no kids (yet!) but two cats. I moved to the beautiful bay area in 2000 and in 2006 I moved to Scottsdale, Arizona - can you say 'HOT'! I love skiing and snowboarding (I am Austrian after all) and I am a big fan of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) - have been doing Tae Kwon Do since I was 14 and started Muay Thai a year ago. I am also trying to lower my handicap in golfing (currently 18) but that is a slow process - living in Scottsdale certainly helps though.

Airports and flying are not on my list of preferred activities but my job requires me to do it quite frequently.

I got into SAP by accident because I was applying for a network admin position, which I did not get. A couple of days later I got a phone call that asked me if I would be interested in supporting the companies SAP system - their headquarter sent them a box with pre-installed SAP on it but nobody knew what to do with it!

This was in the beginning of 1994 and I spent more or less the rest of the year in Vienna and Walldorf attending training courses.

My next career move was to become a consultant with Ernst & Young in Vienna (now Cap Gemini) and I am a consultant ever since.

I got exposed to a lot of different companies and requirements and I also worked with SAP R/2 for a while for a big car company in Italy.

During a client engagement in Finland I was approached by a US company to move to the US and work for them. After talking to my wife and visiting the company in the US I decided to give it a try (we wanted to stay for two years only!) and I am in the US ever since (and with the same company).

In my early days I mostly did SAP Basis work on various platforms like AIX/SINIX/Windows with Oracle/Informix/MS SQL but also had one job implementing SAP R/3 on OS/390 and DB2. I then moved to ABAP development with an emphasis on HCM.

In the last 5 years I focused on end-to-end delivery of HR related implementations (SAP and non SAP) with an emphasis on ESS/MSS including worklfow and recently Adobe forms but also custom Java applications using Weblogic/Oracle or the Netweaver platform.

I have amassed quite a lot of certifications over the years (Basis, Abap, HCM, BW, ASAP) but no client every asked me about it! I also got the project management professional (PMP) certification and this one helped me getting project management jobs in the past.

My passions nowadays is project management as I love to deal with people and be constantly on alert but it's also great if you can help out in certain areas when you are short on resources. I haven't had a project yet where I did not do coding/configuration as well! I am also promoting UML (Unified Modeling Language) whenever possible as it helps during the requirements gathering process as well as solution development process.

BEST THING EVER!

I can't (and won't) remember the days without SDN as it's been invaluable for my professional life (and to a certain extent social life as well).

Gone are the days of listserv mailing lists (at least for me) - except the SAP-WUG mailing list that is still very active.

I signed up at the TechED in 2003 and in 2004 & 2005 I was already giving BoF sessions. My personal highlight was my TechED lecture that was voted on by the community in 2006 - besides being a SAP Mentor which I am very honored to be.

SDN has certainly grown over the years and lost a little bit the small family feeling but the community vibe is still strong. New members have emerged that are very passionate and the SDN team itself is stronger then ever.
I am glad having met many of the SDN team members and community members in person that shape this community and I can't wait to meet even more in the future.
Even when I am on vacation I check this site frequently just to see what is going on.

This is really so much more then just a place to ask for help or SAP related information. It's a community of like-minded spirits that share the same passion as I do - being a geek and such

I am working for SSIP.com (Strategic Systems & Information Professionals) since 2000.

My main focus is on end-to-end delivery of SAP implementations in the HCM area as well as custom development of HCM related applications. We have offices in North America, Europe and Asia with our US headquarter in Houston, Texas and offshore development in Manila, Phillipines. The Manila office has dedicated departments for ERP configuration/development, web site/application design/development as well as outsourcing.

We are an implementation partner of SAP AG as well as a customer (having your own SAP environment helps quite a lot!). I am responsible for the ERP technical team in Manila as well as the custom development team and so far it's been a blast.

Mainly giving my wife the attention that she deserves    but besides that I am 'allowed' a few leisure activities. Luckily my wife and I share the same passion for sports and that helps a lot.

 
We both are big winter sports enthusiasts and love skiing and snowboarding - Why the heck do you live in Scottsdale then you might ask?

We both play golf quite a bit and I am fortunate to have a golf membership at a really nice golf course in Scottsdale - check it out. Please send me a PM when you are in the area as I would love to play a round with you.
I am also a fan of mixed martial arts and the UFC and started with Muay Thai a year ago - training at Sitan Gym. I have been doing Tae Kwon Do for a long time but that is quite different. I am trying to avoid looking bruised up but that's not easy. We have a saying at the gym: You gonna get hit - get over it! It's a great sport when you spend most of your time in front of a desktop or in meetings.