Merge pull request #15146 from jerdog/jerdog/kc2025-updates

[KC-2025] Basic updates

Author: toshywoshy

assets/events/2025-kansas-city/speakers/george-westwater.jpg

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+Talk_date = ""
+Talk_start_time = ""
+Talk_end_time = ""
+Title = "Evolution of a Configuration Management Legend: The Chef Journey"
+Type = "talk"
+Speakers = ["george-westwater"]
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+
+Since the inception of the term DevOps, Chef has been at the forefront of configuration management and automation. Over the past 15+ years, the Chef product line has continuously evolved, adapting to the changing landscape of infrastructure as code, cloud-native architectures, and modern DevOps practices. In this 30-minute session, we’ll explore how Chef has transitioned from its early days as a pioneer in infrastructure automation to its current role within the Chef 360 ecosystem, supporting hybrid cloud environments and Kubernetes-native deployments.
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+We will touch on the strategic decisions behind major product evolutions, including the shift to Habitat-based builds, the introduction of Agentless modes, and the deeper integration with cloud marketplaces. You’ll also learn how Chef continues to innovate while maintaining its core values of infrastructure consistency, compliance, and automation. Join us to understand the journey of Chef and its ongoing relevance in modern DevOps solutions.

content/events/2025-kansas-city/program/george-westwater.md

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+Title = "George Westwater"
+Twitter = ""
+linkedin = "https://www.linkedin.com/in/westwater/"
+image = "george-westwater.jpg"
+type = "speaker"
+linktitle = "george-westwater"
+
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+George Westwater is a Senior Director of Software Engineering at Progress Chef. He has 25+ years of experience across all altitudes of an organization (developer, architect, manager, executive, …) at a wide range of organization sizes from small start-ups to FANG organizations. George has designed, built, supported, and deployed software across multiple verticals to on-prem datacenters, AWS, Azure, GCP, as shrink-wrap software, and on IoT/Edge devices. George’s passion for problem-solving and team dynamics is evident in his fast passed, interactive and engaging sessions.