The AZGiveCamp Founders Award was created by, and is given by the AZGiveCamp founders for outstanding service to AZGiveCamp. Each AZGiveCamp event has at least one person (usually more) without whom the event simply would not have been successful. The AZGiveCamp Founders Award was created to honor these individuals and to allow us to remember their contributions in perpetuity.
Joseph Guadagno has been developing software for 15 years and has been extremely active in the Phoenix development community, helping to bring several successful events to the Valley. You can follow Joe on Twitter @jguadagno or read his blog at http://www.josephguadagno.net.
Joe earned the inaugural Founders Award at our first AZGiveCamp in May of 2010. Joe worked with the City of Chandler arranging the venue, the food, the speakers, and virtually everything else related to the setup of the event facilities. Joe’s tireless work on the 1st ever AZGiveCamp will never be forgotten.
Steven Pittman has been a member of the Greater Phoenix IT community for nearly 20 years working with some of the valley’s largest technology companies. He got his start working desktop support and soon had a taste for bigger and better things. His career advanced through the infrastructure ranks and wound up doing Project Management for software development. Steven holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree from the University of Phoenix and is pursuing his Master of Science in Engineering degree from Arizona State University (Go Sun Devils!).
Steve was awarded the AZGiveCamp Founders award in January of 2011 for his work on AZGiveCamp II. An imperfectly engineered consolidation of team responsibilities left Steve’s Logistics team in charge of Venue, Budget, Food, and everything else not directly related to the projects teams. Steve and his team pulled-off the event with no logistical incidents whatsoever, a feat that may never be repeated in the history of technology events. In addition, the food was awesome and Steve even personally delivered all of the leftovers to the Phoenix Rescue Mission.
Renée Sanz graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver and moved to Arizona in 2006 to continue her education in Global Management and Marketing. Renée credits both the move to Arizona and her continuing education with opening the door to many opportunities to work with spectacular people. Serving as the Non-Profit Coordinator for AZGiveCamp allows her a further opportunity to give back to the community. Renée professes that “My passion for professional development motivates me to network within my community and internationally.”
Renée earned the AZGiveCamp Founders award in October of 2011 for her work on AZGiveCamp III. Renée singlehandedly managed all non-profit organizations that we worked with at our third event, a monumental task. Without Renée’s tireless efforts, it is very unlikely that we would have been able to hold a successful event.