I would like to nominate Kevin Thull (kthull on Drupal.org) for this year’s Aaron Winborn Award.
If you have been to a Drupal camp in the last few years, you may have seen Kevin sprinting from session room to session room — making sure each speaker hit the big red record button, then quietly uploading every session to YouTube within hours.
Why Kevin
The Aaron Winborn Award recognizes an individual who demonstrates a deep commitment to the Drupal community. Kevin has quietly built the recording rig, the workflow, and the documentation that let dozens of camps share their sessions with the world — work that multiplies the reach of every speaker and every camp many times over.
He has shared his entire kit and process openly, so other camps can replicate it. That generosity — making his own contribution easy for others to copy — is exactly the spirit the award celebrates.
I first met Kevin in 2013 at the first Drupal Camp Fox Valley. A mutual friend asked if they could borrow a video camera as a backup to their session recording setup. Turns out they didn’t need it, as Kevin had already started dialing in his system. He has a great series of blog posts documenting his recording kit.
A few years later, as I started to volunteer to help the organizers of MidCamp, I was happy — but not surprised — that Kevin, who had moved into the city, was one of the primary organizers. His skills do not end at recording, editing, and upload, but also lie in planning, logistics, printing lanyards, programs, banners, and t-shirts.
The throughline
It’s the kind of unglamorous, high-leverage work that holds a community together. If you’ve benefited from watching a camp session you couldn’t attend in person, there’s a good chance you have Kevin to thank.