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I haven't been very active on this site lately, but since a lot of people in this community know me, and have always known they could come to me with questions, I wanted to let you all know that today is my last day at Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange, Inc.

That means you won't be seeing the diamond next to my name anymore, and I won't be able to go check the database or ping employees as easily. However, I obviously still have lots of connections to the people here and I'll try to check in from time to time.

I'll be joining York Space Systems, a startup in the commercial satellite industry where some friends of mine work. If all goes well, I'll be writing code for things that fly in space, and I'm super excited about that.

I wanted to say how incredibly grateful I am for this site and community. Back in August 2013, I was new to the company, a new pilot, super excited about flying, and this site was just an Area 51 proposal. Watching Aviation grow from proposal, to beta, to a fully graduated site taught me a lot about the Stack Exchange Network, and prompted me to build relationships with members of our Community team because I had something to talk to them about.

I also got the opportunity to meet a couple of you in-person, and met many more in chat. I hope to continue some of those conversations in the future. I truly believe this is one of the very best communities on the internet.

I'm also grateful because the most popular thing I've ever made (a presentation on how to land the space shuttle), wouldn't have ever happened if I didn't write this answer first: How does the Space Shuttle slow down during re-entry, descent, and landing? That got me thinking about the topic, which I hadn't thought about for a while.

Lastly, I want to say a huge special thank-you to the moderators here (past and present) who give/gave so much of their time FOR FREE just to keep things running well. I acted as a moderator for a couple years - it's thankless and exhausting. So... make sure you thank them once in a while, even if they deleted that funny comment you were so proud of.

I tagged this with ... because there wasn't a tag. Thank you all.

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    $\begingroup$ Please take my upvote not as approval of the fact you're leaving, but as a congratulations on your new job. Good luck and thanks for helping get this site started! $\endgroup$
    – Dan Hulme
    Commented Aug 24, 2018 at 20:14
  • $\begingroup$ Take care and good luck in your new life. $\endgroup$
    – Thorsten S.
    Commented Aug 28, 2018 at 17:54
  • $\begingroup$ You should have made self-indulgent as your last official act. :) But, seriously though, congratulations on the new job and thanks for your contributions here! $\endgroup$
    – reirab
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 15:32
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    $\begingroup$ Congratulations, and thanks again for all of your help when we were getting things setup around here, and ever since! $\endgroup$
    – Lnafziger
    Commented Sep 7, 2018 at 15:12
  • $\begingroup$ How will the “fleet of small asteroid hunters” proposed by the B612 Foundation & York Space Systems work? $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Feb 2, 2020 at 2:49
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    $\begingroup$ @uhoh I don't know anything about that proposal. $\endgroup$
    – Bret Copeland
    Commented Feb 3, 2020 at 20:06

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Congrats on the new job! While you're coding, just don't forget to convert feet into meters. :P

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I would like to thank you for the help you provided to the mod team behind the scenes, I will be ever grateful for that.

I also wish you all the best in your future job that sadly will take you more towards Space.SE, but you know you will always be welcome in the Hangar :)

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you Federico $\endgroup$
    – Bret Copeland StaffMod
    Commented Aug 24, 2018 at 19:57
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Thank you Bret,

for all the great work you have done here since the first day this site existed. You've been instrumental in making this site into the success it has become today.

I am especially grateful for your constructive and supportive comments in the early days. Three examples:

  1. On my first answer here to the first ever question on this site you asked for a reference; it inspired me to write better answers and provide references.

  2. Two days later your suggestion to include more information in the answer inspired me to do a lot of research on a topic I thought I new relatively well; it turned out I could learn a lot more.

  3. Your support for having a dedicated icon for Aviation during the Beta phase and convincing the design team to implement it; it confirmed to me that at this site the community is being listened to, and everybody can influence the development. That is not a given for an aviation site.

It's actions like these have contributed a lot to the joy I experienced of being part of this website. Thank you for that.

I wish you all the best in your future in space. Don't forget to come back into the atmosphere occasionally :-)

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the kind words. Gauging by your 50k+ reputation, I'd argue you've contributed more to this site than I ever have :) $\endgroup$
    – Bret Copeland
    Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 5:33
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    $\begingroup$ The 50K reputation is just because what I did was more visible, not more important. You did many of the little and big things, unnoticed by many people, that are part of the true fundament under this site. That doesn't get the praise or reputation it deserves. In the end, real reputation can't be captured by a number showing in a name tag. $\endgroup$
    – DeltaLima Mod
    Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 12:06
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Nose up, throttle up.

Good luck in your future endeavours, Bret. Sounds like a totally awesome job you have there!

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