Operation Code DC - October 2018

10.23.20182 Min Read — In Operation Code

On Wednesday, October 17th, Operation Code DC gathered for our second meetup since the relaunch of our chapter. We were hosted by GE Aviation in downtown Washington, DC. The GE Aviation staff went absolutely above and beyond helping to prepare the site for us and get all of our members up to the space. I am so thankful to Amelia Butler, Todd Stiefler, and Luke Meixner for their help prepping the space, shuttling folks up, and providing pizzas and beers for our members. 🍻👏👏

I also want to give a special shout out to The Full Dress Hoodie, who designed a hoodie based on the West Point Parade Uniform. I feel like developer meetups are the Iron Man Triathlon for Hoodies, and this one held up great. Thanks!

Our first speaker was Marsel Grey, who discussed his transition from Army Medic to web development by way of General Assembly DC. Hearing his transition was super inspirational, and I loved that his instructor Zachary Fleischmann joined our meetup to support his former student.

Next us was Stuart Hanberg, who provided a really informative primer on the core principles of web design. I personally learned a ton from this talk, and given the number of fantastic questions the audience had, I know they did as well!

Our final speaker was Joe Castle, an Army Artilleryman that now spends his time blasting away government bureaucracy as the director of the GSA Digital Service. He discussed Code.gov and federal open source policy, and showed how we can contribute pull requests to government open source repositories.

I really enjoyed seeing so many folks having good conversations outside of the formal talks. I think the beers and the cozy break room atmosphere was really suited to our audience of about thirty folks. I know that the vibe of our meetups will change and evolve as our chapter grows, but being in a small space with a good group of folks really made this meetup feel like a good opportunity to make new friends.

All these amazing photos were taken by the singularly amazing Kaitlin Moreno. It's quite the privilege to have a professional photographer attend our meetups. If you are interested in booking her to shoot a wedding, portrait, or corporate event, check out here site at https://www.kaitlinjane.com/

Finally, our next meetup is back at GE Aviation on November 8th at 6pm. We'll learn about the cyber security career field, and hear from speakers from Homeland Security, Synack, and the Army Reserve.

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