The achievements of Red Hat Certified Engineers (RHCEs) from around the world will be honored for the third-consecutive year at the upcoming Red Hat Summit, June 18 – 20 in Boston, Mass. RHCE of the Year awards will be granted to five individuals – one each from the United States, Canada, Asia-Pacific, India and Europe.

The RHCE of the Year award gives Red Hat an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of five extremely resourceful and capable individuals whose winning submissions highlight the value of the Red Hat certifications for the enterprise, the career and the community. The awards also recognize the contributions of our certified community as a whole. More than 500 RHCEs entered this year’s contest by answering the question: “why should you be considered RHCE of the Year?” in 1,000 words or less.

Winners of the RHCE of the Year 2008 title will receive an all-expense-paid trip to the fourth annual Red Hat Summit, where they will be officially recognized through a special awards ceremony.

This year’s winners are:

  • Michael Yingbull
    PMC-Sierra
    Burnaby, British Columbia Canada
  • Anil Waychal
    Suma Soft Pvt Ltd
    Pune, India
  • David Yip
    Capital Servicing Co., Ltd.
    Tokyo, Japan
  • Jeroen van Meeuwen
    Operator Groep Delft
    Netherlands
  • Michael Thomas
    California Institute of Technology
    Pasadena, California USA

Michael Yingbull, the inauguaral Canadian RHCE of the Year maintains that, “RHCE training is about thinking in the big picture, not just working with a part. That understanding of the broad fundamentals, and the range of capabilities of Red Hat software, gave me the ability to bring vision to what we can do as a business to get more value using Red Hat and open source technologies.”

Anil Waychal, India’s winner, led his company’s efforts in migrating more than 350 systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The end result was a large cost savings and a significant boost for Suma Soft’s overall security.

This year’s Asia Pacific winner, David Yip, is located in Tokyo. An RHCE since 2001, David leveraged Red Hat technology to create system status tools and an early warning system for the company’s server environment. Attracted to Linux “because it gives you choices,” David is committed to the technology and “want[s] to share the fun of Linux!!”

The winner from Europe, Jeroen van Meeuwen, has been “addicted” to Red Hat from the very beginning, starting with Red Hat Linux 5.2 back in 1998. Since that point, he has turned his hobby into a career, evolving from system administrator to internal teacher to ODG’s Linux subject matter expert. In addition, Jeroen is an active Ambassador and Developer in the Fedora community, and was responsible for founding the Fedora EMEA non-profit organization.

Michael Thomas, a system administrator at the California Institute of Technology, implemented an automated network install system for a large computer farm relying in large part on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and its inherent virtualization functionality. Moreover, Michael manages a large number of support servers allowing for cutting-edge experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, helping to “pave the way for new physics discoveries, while also allowing me to participate in the world’s leading program developing Petabyte-scale data transfers among many sites spanning the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.”

Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT) and Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certifications are awarded for successful completion of challenging performance-based tests that measure actual competency on live systems. RHCE was recently named the hottest certification in all of IT by CertCities.com. There are more than 50,000 Red Hat certified professionals across the world, including nearly 32,000 RHCEs.

For more information on the contest, see here.