One year ago Derek Hopper joined Ideal Project Group as our Lead Engineer/Hacker.

Adding Derek to our small team changed our company and our products for the better, and it's difficult to think about what the company would be like without him.

I always try to let the people that I work with know how important they are, but as with most things we can always do better.

When I heard Derek left the startup he was working with, I think about 12 minutes passed before I asked him if he wanted to work on a small project with us. About a month later he became a full time employee when he accepted my job offer.

The day he accepted, I came home and told my wife Maile how excited I was. 'You don't understand', I explained, 'Derek joining our team is completely game changing.'

Tula software had just launched, but there was a still a lot of work to do and much of it was pretty complicated. We had also landed some new clients and I needed someone I could trust completely to work with us.

I'm not right about everything, but I pretty much nailed the game changing part.

I suppose I could go on and on, but I'll just say that I try hard to give our people as much as they give the larger team, and I hope that always shows.

Thanks for such a great year Derek, we wouldn't be the same without you.