Robert Roskam

The 2025 winner of the Jimmy C Award, Robert Roskam.

I talk a great deal about how Joel founded this conference, but Robert Roskam was also there from the very beginning. He helped Joel start it, and he was very much a co-founder. When I took it over in 2023, Robert was happy to offer any advice that he possibly could to help the effort succeed. He's always willing to lend a hand. He's always been involved in this community ever since he's been here. He wrote most of the dad jokes that you groan to.

He's been involved in all of those meetings that Jim organized to help establish Hack Greenville as an umbrella entity for the meetup groups in the community. He's given his time and wisdom to those causes for years, and he realized that we needed more. And with help of two partners, he formed the nonprofit Refactor Greenville to provide a formal structure — banking, accounting, a channel for charitable donations, management that enabled those organizations to remain stable and thrive. Refactor Greenville's umbrella currently includes both Hack Greenville itself and Upstate Women in Software Engineering.

Robert's commitment to the needs of the community — to use his knowledge and experience to see the plan and the gaps and then to take the initiative to address them to ensure they can thrive — are why Robert is the 2025 recipient of the Jimmy C Award.