Mendicant University often has so much going on that it's hard to slow down and say thanks to the folks who are making a huge difference around here. But because it never hurts to give credit where credit is due, this series of community posts is all about offering periodic hat tips to folks who have been doing excellent work for the school and the broader community.

This time around, my hat goes off to Mendicant University's co-founder, Jordan Byron. While his work has benefited us from day one, he has done more work than I have for this community over the last few months. In addition to launching this community website, he also ran our "Mending Mendicant" month in February. Lots of folks contributed great patches to our various projects, but Jordan was the one who had to review and merge all of them.

In March, Jordan ran our third web development course, and helped the students work on building an early prototype for replacing our existing classroom management software . In addition to the course, Jordan also represented Mendicant University in a short lightning talk at MountainWest RubyConf. As if all of that weren't enough, he also participated in the 5th annual Connecticut Mission of Mercy event, using his technical skills to help real people in pain get the dental treatment they need.

I can't be more proud to have such an amazingly productive and helpful co-founder, and I can say without hesitation that Mendicant University would not exist without him. If you find time to offer him a few words of thanks, please do so!

Please feel free to email me suggestions for who should receive the next hat tip in recognition of their contributions to Mendicant University, the Ruby ecosystem, or the world.