On the opening day of IBM's IOD 2008 conference in Las Vegas, Fred Sobotka was inducted into IBM's Data Champion program, a new honor bestowed upon IT professionals who have made exceptional contributions to the data management community. Fred was among the initial group of database experts nominated into this program, and he looks forward to continuing his contribution to the DB2 user community in various ways, including blogging, writing magazine articles, and volunteering at IDUG conferences.