Introducing the New Chairman

Hello members! I'm honored to have been elected as chairman of the PDF Association board of directors in June 2016. I'd like to take an opportunity to introduce myself and give some information on my philosophy on how the PDF Association can best help our membership, as well as the broader PDF ecosystem.

I've been working in the PDF and document SDK field since 2000 - during this time I've had a lot of opportunities: learning about the prepress and print industries and the imaging field; helping to create the precursor to PDF/VT; helping PDF proliferate by helping others build PDF capabilities into their own products. Over the past several years I've become more involved in the digital document community - joining the technical communities for PDF as well as eBooks, working on the ISO standards for PDF and related PDF standards. But I've also had the chance to become more involved with the broader, more market-focused part of the PDF ecosystem and the communities there.

The PDF Association has also become more involved in the push to make PDF ubiquitous in digital document workflows. While it has always been a technical resource and instrumental in advancing along PDF standards and technologies, as our membership has grown the desire among our members for additional lobbying and marketing for PDF has also grown. That is, PDF is a great standard but there are still a large number of use cases where PDF can bring tremendous user value and drive disruptive positive process change. But these users to whom we can bring value to don't yet understand where and how PDF can enhance their lives. We - as a collection not just of technologists but also as an association dedicated to serving our customers and markets - we all benefit together with efforts that make PDF the "go-to" digital document format.

In surveys you've spoken clearly and strongly about wanting the PDF Association to continue its role in advancing PDF along as an interoperable technology, and also wanting the Association to promote PDF in public venues and to industry verticals where PDF can help reduce costs and enable new capabilities. Our intention as an association is to do just these things. We'll continue to play a key part in advancing along PDF standards and technologies, as well as providing mechanisms different implementations can use to better ensure interoperability across implementations. The Association will continue pushing for more creators to include information within PDFs, such as tagging and metadata, that enhance PDF file capabilities and repurposing without affecting the core value promise of portable digital documents. Additionally, the PDF Association will continue educating the broader business community about the benefits of PDF and its related standards, to provide vertical-specific information on the PDF value proposition and to reinforce the unique value propositions that PDF brings to different verticals.

Through working together as a community to spread the word about PDF's value propositions - portability, reliability and longevity - I believe we can all benefit each other, and benefit ourselves. This comes through continuing to follow through on the value that we as a community bring with PDF, and by remaining true to the PDF core philosophy while allowing users and businesses to drive ever-increasing benefit through the use of PDF technologies.