Announcing Two New HCL Grandmasters

Some people shine above others, and it’s easy to see what they’ve done and been doing for years and years. Those people come to our attention time and time again throughout the year, and it’s always a pleasure to see them “rising above” regularly. We take these interactions and store them away for future reference.

These people get honoured by us as being extra-special Masters, and we like to call them HCL Grandmasters, currently having 7 of them;

 • Gabriella Davis

 • Theo Heselmans

 • Julian Robichaux

 • Roberto Mazzoni

 • Daniel Nashed

 • Richard Moy

 • Paul Withers

Paul has just retired his term as a Grandmaster by joining us here at HCL. That’s the only hard rule we have in the Masters program: You cannot be an employee of HCL.

This year we are incredibly thrilled to be honouring two new HCL Grandmasters.

Mitsuru Katoh

 “The status of HCL Grandmaster allows me to help the community more, interoperating inside and outside Japan, which leads to the entire community developing. That’s very important to me and HCL.

 In the current situation where Japanese HCL Masters look quiet and isolated among other region’s HCL Masters, despite the large market and local user-community activities. Probably because of the language barriers and cultural differences. To overcome this situation and show their presence more globally, I promise I will dedicate myself to lead them to engage more in the global community.“

Bill Malchisky

 “I started with Notes in 1993 and appreciated the LISP-based Formula language. From there, I developed Notes DBs and learned to be an admin, leading developers on large projects. After 26 years it still feels incredible to be part of this amazing community while finding a way to contribute steadily. We are all so fortunate to be part of something greater than any one of us, and that of which continues to endure.

 Notes and Domino allowed me to merge my other technology passion: Linux. Combining both, created a path to where I find myself here today — an HCL Grandmaster. I want to thank all those with whom I have interfaced over the years. It means a lot to me to receive this honor.

 What’s next? I will keep working on the non-mobile template design project, allowing us to improve the overall user experience within Domino.

 Mentoring new community members is something I like to do when my schedule gives me the opportunity.

 Finally, continuing to train administrators on how to be more efficient with Linux when running the HCL Digital Solutions stack will certainly remain a theme.“

Mitsuru and Bill will be taking on their HCL Grandmaster titles immediately, so please join us in congratulating them for their outstanding achievements.

To Mitsuru, Bill, our existing Grandmasters and our HCL Masters,

 “Thanks for all you’ve done and all you do.”

From all of us at HCL.