Yesterday I learned, via a tweet from Bethany Nowviskie, that Friday, July 30th is System Administrator Appreciation Day. While I hadn’t heard about this holiday before, it strikes me as one of the best holidays yet invented — because, really, we can’t thank our Sys Admins enough. And that is particularly true for the CUNY Academic Commons, where we are lucky enough to have the extremely bodacious André Pitanga, Lead Systems Administrator at the CUNY Graduate Center, running our show — or, rather, running the servers that run the software that runs our show.

The Sys Admin Appreciation Day website details a number of reasons why all members of the Commons should be grateful to André for his work. And they are all true — André designed and set up our server racks, got the servers running, configured our networks, installed our software packages, performed needed system upgrades, troubleshooted thorny permissions issues, secured the site during malicious attacks, and made himself available for consultation on all sorts of issues. If you’re lucky enough to get a tour of the server room from him –I’ve done it five or six times now; it never gets old — you’ll see his eyes light up as he describes the racks he designed for this project. Sure, those eyes take on a slightly maniacal glimmer as he discusses server cooling systems, but it’s all good! Right?

There are a few things, though, that make André’s work truly special: his contagious enthusiasm for collaborative projects, his passion for open-source platforms and the communities that support them, and (most importantly), his humbleness, sincerity, and openness. The Commons is extremely lucky to have André behind it, not just because of his formidable technical expertise, but also because of the creative enthusiasm that he adds to Development Team.

And, so, on this day, I want to express my gratitude to André, my colleague and my friend, for everything he has done for the Commons. Thank you, André. You rule!