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Ash is the Volunteer Director of QuakeCon 2004.

PlanetQuake3: As the Volunteer Director what are your responsibilities?
Ash: In a nutshell, I'm responsible for the recruitment, selection, placement, rotation, and recognition of all of our volunteer staff.

PlanetQuake3: How many volunteers do you expect to help out this year?
Ash: It's always difficult to guess exactly how many volunteers we will get each year.  This year the initial interest in volunteering was fantastic, with almost 1000 people offering to volunteer in one respect or another.

However, volunteer signups have just begun (and only with Setup Volunteers so far), and so it's hard to say exactly how many of those volunteers are still going to be available.  One thing is for sure, we'll take every volunteer we can get.  A thousand person workforce would be fantastic.

PlanetQuake3: This is the third hotel is as many years. How much harder does that make the setup process?
Ash: It's difficult for me to say.  While I've always enjoyed being a volunteer for the QuakeCon organization, I've never before been in a position to be on the "inside" during the planning and setup of QuakeCon.

I have to mention that it is just absolutely stunning how much work goes into this event by our executive staff and their respective staffs. Months and months of (free) labor goes into making QuakeCon possible.

I can guess that having a new venue each year has required a lot of work to be accomplished each year that wasn't necessary when we called the Mesquite Hampton home for several years, but even then we were growing each year.  However, one thing that hasn't been lost on all of the previous years is the experience of our volunteers.  Top to bottom, we have an amazing volunteer staff.  I'm very proud to work with all of them.

PlanetQuake3: Tell us how the title "CrimNation" came to be for the many people who help make the Ethernet cables for the LAN.
Ash: Actually, I'm not entirely sure how the CrimpNation was founded.  While I was on the network crew as cable runner and security guard in 98, 2000, 2k1, and 2k2; I spent most of my time in 2k3 in Eagle1's alley, working in Registration.  (Another fantastic place to volunteer, by the way.)

PlanetQuake3: Why do you think people are so eager to spend their time at QuakeCon volunteering?
Ash: Oh wow.  The possibilities are endless.  For me the volunteer experience has always been about the people.  From my fellow volunteers that share their experiences, sweat, and laughter, to the attendees that come through with big smiles, to the competitors that consistently kick so much ass; I can't think of a more rewarding group of people to know.

Even in the beginning, spending hours and hours sitting by doors and checking name tags, I always came back to Kansas with stories I was proud to tell.

Now, after six years and five QuakeCon's, some of my very best friends I met at QuakeCon.  I look forward to every QuakeCon with great anticipation, so that I can spend time again with those friends.

I just can't think of anything that's not to love. :)

PlanetQuake3: Tell us about the new volunteer sign system this year. How much easier will it make it to organize the volunteers process?
Ash: The new volunteer system is a couple of interesting projects that take a different approach to volunteer management than we've done in the past. The first component is the modular questionnaire system, which allows for multiple questionnaires to be available for a variety of tasks.  This has been quite a boon for data collection so far, and I'm excited to see how it continues to excel as we get closer to the event.

The second component is a very very basic scheduler.  Rather than try to have a computerized single occupancy scheduler, instead it will be used for scheduling "pools" of volunteers.  The majority of scheduling will be done by hand.

The third component (and the most varied from previous systems) is the recognition system.  We now have a dedicated volunteer management team headed by BFD whose core purpose is recording the endeavors of our volunteer staff.  That data is then converted into a "scoreboard" of sorts, providing a credits page for all of the QuakeCon volunteers, sorted by their approximate contribution.  I think that it will be a lot of fun for everyone and also provide a great service to all of our hardworking and dedicated volunteers.

PlanetQuake3: What's the hardest part of being the Volunteer Director?
Ash: Oh!  Finding the time, definitely.  The "Volunteer" part of "Volunteer Director" works both ways.  I'm both the director of volunteers, and a volunteer myself.  As a busy college student, it takes a lot to find the time necessary to do the job that QuakeCon deserves.

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