I credit women with almost every significant step in my career progression. * My first official programming teacher was a woman at my high school who was kind

I credit women with almost every significant step in my career progression. * My first official programming teacher was a woman at my high school who was kind enough to accept me and two friends into her class two years early. She also encouraged me to apply to a college-level programming competition, which gave me both a sense of humility in knowing how much more I had to learn, and whetted my appetite to learn more. She also let me spend class time on software that did my calculus homework :) * I landed my first professional job thanks to the encouragement of Dr. Mary Dayne Gregg and her class in COBOL, which got my foot in the door of a large company doing Y2K fixes. I can't say it was my favorite gig, but she prepared me well for my first job. * My wife: not a programmer but as an ardent and patient feminist she's helped me be less of a pain in the ass for my coworkers.