Tom Basil

Tom Basil is Percona's first Chief Operating Officer, starting in November 2008. Previously Tom was MySQL AB's first Director of Support for nearly eight years, from the launch of support as a separate team until after its $1 billion acquisition by Sun Microsystems. He managed a team of 60 persons in 15 nations, all working over the Internet from their homes. Included on his team were Peter Zaitsev and Vadim Tkachenko, who later became Percona's founders.

Tom was introduced to MySQL starting in 1999 when, as a DBA for an Internet start-up, he became a customer. Tom's prior computing career was as a civilian programmer for the US Navy. He works from his office in his Baltimore, Maryland area home, where he lives with his lovely wife of 24 years and their six noisy but lovable children.