Hi there! Welcome to my professional blog. I really appreciate you taking the time to visit. I’d like to share a couple things about myself – in case you’re interested. Why? I believe context matters. If you don’t agree, feel free to skip on past this post and enjoy the ten (plus!) years of content stored here. We can still be friends. Promise! :{> This post is divided into three sections:

Professional Stuff

Andy Leonard is the founder and Chief Data Engineer at Enterprise Data & Analytics (EDNA), an SSIS trainer, consultant, and developer; a Biml developer and BimlHero; SQL Server database and data warehouse developer, community mentor, engineer, and farmer.

EDNA offers Azure Data Factory and SSIS consulting services, and live and recorded training. Let’s meet to discuss how Enterprise Data & Analytics may serve you and your team.

He is the creator of the DILM Suite (Data Integration Lifecycle Management) which includes several free – and some open source – utilities to facilitate enterprise data integration with SSIS, along with some awesome (and not free) applications like SSIS Catalog Compare and SSIS Frameworks:

Interested? Schedule a demo and Andy will be honored to share how you and your team can save time and improve SSIS code quality.

Andy is the author and co-author of several books:

Professional Passion:

I deliver consulting services and training. I work mainly with Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) from Varigence, Azure Data Factory, and Azure DevOps. I love learning. I think that’s why I love sharing and teaching and training – it’s like sharing the best feeling ever! I enjoy leading teams – especially teams that perform data integration. Data integration is a fancy-schmancy word for reading data from one place, transforming it so all the dates and numbers look the same, correcting or removing bad and duplicated data, and landing it in some other place. Does this sound boring? For some it is. Not for me! Data integration is an essential part of Data Science. In fact, data integration is the biggest part of every data science project, taking 50-80% of the project’s time. And if you don’t get this part right, all the shiny, pretty charts and graphs are all but useless. Data Integration is called Data Engineering by many these days. I like both terms and use them interchangeably.

Personal:

My Idea of Church…

…is illustrated in this Zach Williams video:

My Other Ideas of Church…

These pictures are from one of our mission trips to Honduras with The Honduras Project.

In the Beginning…

I wasn’t always a Christian. I believed in something I called “Universal Justice,” which I now realize made me agnostic. I believed in something beyond myself but I didn’t know what that something was. Being agnostic, I argued with Christian friends in high school. Three life events occurred during a 10-day period in July 1981 (the month after I graduated high school):

I turned 18.
My Mom and Dad separated.
I learned my girlfriend was pregnant.

Even though it was 10 days, I refer to that period as grow-up-now-week. My girlfriend and I got married. We struggled, though, living in a small town where everyone knew everyone’s business. I worked at a stockyard, doing farm chores and mucking stalls; picked peaches and other fruit at a local orchard; and performed with country music bands on weekends to make ends meet. I joined the Virginia Army National Guard. One National Guard drill Sunday, we were allowed to attend church services since a chaplain would not be visiting our unit that day. I went to get out of the other work our company had planned (true story). I was moved by the sermon some but not a lot – the gentleman was a lackluster preacher. I could easily take apart his logic, socratic-ly speaking. Later that week, though, some members of that congregation showed up at our door with a few boxes filled with groceries. I could not debate groceries. You cannot debate love. I believed. I was baptized. And thus began the phase of my relationship with Christ where I acknowledge Him. I write it that way because I now realize I had a relationship with Christ prior to that moment – I just didn’t know it. Jesus was protecting and leading me all my life prior to that moment. How do I know? Romans 5:8 informs me: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He was bringing me to that moment. He’s been leading me since that moment. Since that moment things have changed. Life hasn’t been all awesome and perfect. I’ve stumbled and suffered for it. I’ve hurt others and been hurt. But… I’ve been forgiven and forgiven others. I’ve experienced God’s grace – something I cannot describe – something I don’t believe can be described – grace must be experienced. I am a sinner saved by grace.

I share this part of my personal history to encourage you. It could be that you’re struggling right now as you read these words. You may have questions about life, the universe, and everything. You may be questioning whether life is even worth living. In Luke 9:23, Jesus told his followers a hard thing: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Those are serious things, denying yourself, taking up your cross daily, and following Him. I describe this as “dying to myself” and it’s something I pray about daily. Why would anyone want to do such a thing? Jesus’ words in Mark 8:35 provide an answer: “For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for me and for the gospel, you will save it.” Jim Elliot – a missionary who was killed by those with whom he was attempting to share the Gospel – said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” I concur. I am here to tell you that’s true. I ask you to consider following Christ. Many of you have considered following Christ in the past. Many have had extremely negative experiences with Christians, churches, and people who claim to represent God. I’m not defending those people or excusing their actions, I am asking you to consider Christ Who loved you and me enough to die for us while you and I were still sinners. I believe God hears and answers prayers. My prayer for you, Dear Reader, as I type these words is that the Holy Spirit would move in your heart, stir your soul, inspire something in your mind; and that you would respond to Him. Andy PS – I write about matters of faith at andy.faith(), my personal blog. Connect with me!