Navigating the open water in a sailboat requires skill. So does navigating the Open Source community, especially when you work for Microsoft. Hank Janssen can handle both challenges – and keep a positive attitude.

Hank, the group program manager for Microsoft's Open Source Lab, says: "Sailing takes you back to how life used to be: when you still could explore, do wild things and make life an adventure."

Sometimes convincing Open Source developers that Microsoft is serious about Open Source can be an adventure, too. "I help create an awareness," Hank said, "that Microsoft is taking Open Source very, very seriously. They [Open Source developers] are quite surprised when we show up at conferences, talk to them one-on-one and say, 'Microsoft does care and Microsoft is very interested.' That's what I really enjoy: awareness creation and proving that we can – and are – making a difference."

In his native Holland, at the tender age of 12, Hank "scraped the money together" to buy his first computer, a Spectrum ZX81. "That blossomed into more computers, bigger computers. I enjoyed it so much, I ended up making a career of it."

He started at AT&T more than 20 years ago and has worked for Microsoft a little more than two. Open Source is a big reason why. "I wanted to see if I could impact both Microsoft's way of thinking and the Open Source way of thinking. To my great surprise, I'm having great impact. I go to work everyday being amazed at the changes we're able to instill both inside of Microsoft and outside of Microsoft. It's amazing that somebody at the low level (I feel that I'm at) can make so many different changes that people actually take."

When asked what lasting impact his team's development work will have on the Open Source community, he laughed and said: "We like to think big."

And the same holds true in Hank's personal life. Citing his father's positive attitude as an inspiration, Hank has big plans for himself. He's training to compete in a triathlon this summer. And, someday, in the not-so-distant future, he hopes to sail his boat, the Osprey, around the world.

Says Hank: "The disadvantage of the work I am doing is that when we started two years ago, we never thought we'd be as far along as we are right now. And the work we do on a day-to-day basis is just getting more exciting and more fun. My plans of taking off [to sail the world] might be a little bit postponed because of it – because we're able to do a lot of cool things. And I don't think we're done yet."

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