OpenStreetMap US is hiring an Executive Director, and they are looking to build a hiring committee:

We are thus inviting community members (YOU) to self-nominate if you are interested in participating in the hiring process. … If you are interested in nominating yourself, expressions of interest will be accepted by email (to hiring@openstreetmap.us) until January 12th, 2018.

I’m interested, so I sent the email below.

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Hello,

I would like to participate in the Executive Director hiring process as part of the 7-person committee! I’m pretty sure I know a few of the people who might be reading this email, but I thought I’d make it a more formal one to underscore my interest in helping.

I enthusiastically support the idea of finding a leader for OSM US at this time. The US Foundation has consistently been on the cutting edge of international OSM work, from hosting the most consistently well-produced regional conferences to pioneering advances in OSM’s use for disaster response and international development. OpenStreetMap needs a way to communicate with the many organizations whose mission or business depends on it, and hiring a full-time ED will help this happen.

OSM as a whole is experiencing rapid change, and faces both risks and opportunities I wrote about in this widely-shared blog post last year: http://mike.teczno.com/notes/openstreetmap-at-a-crossroads.html

As a long-time participant in open source and non-profit technology efforts, I bring experience and perspective that will help ensure a good process and result. I’m on the boards of mapping non-profits GreenInfo Network and Digital Democracy, I served as CTO of government technology non-profit Code For America for three years, and I’m currently Executive Director for a new non-profit political mapping project, PlanScore.org.

Finally, as a long-term participant in OpenStreetMap I am deeply familiar with the project background. I’ve mapped since 2006 and attended almost every SOTMUS conference since 2010 in Atlanta. I’ve contributed to OSM in a variety of ways focused on the approachability and usability of the project. I’m motivated to see OSM grow into a mature, healthy, successful organization and I’m excited to see the US Foundation take the important step of finding its first full-time ED to make this happen.

-mike.