User:Neustradamus/Peter Millard

Peter G. Millard (October 7 1971, Buffalo, New York – April 26 2006 ) was one of the Jabber/XMPP protocol's creators and designers.

Millard was the son of Gerald Millard and the late Nancy Millard (nee Speerbrecher) and sister to Heather Millard Krysty. He grew up in Amherst, New York and graduated from Sweet Home High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from SUNY in 1993. He married Christina DeMunda, a teacher of mathematics at Thorton High school, in June 2002 and their daughter, Zoe Mackenzie Millard, was born in November 2005.

Peter was active in the Boy Scouts of America and earned his Eagle Award in June 1985. He continued as a Junior Assistant Scoutmaster and then an Assistant Scoutmaster until 1995. He loved outdoor sports especially mountain and ice climbing, canoeing and mountain biking.

Peter taught himself 7 different computer languages and founded Vantek Software in 1991, writing software for the machine tool industry. Millard actively took part in the development of the open standard instant messenger Jabber/XMPP. He was also the creator and the maintainer of Exodus, a free software XMPP client for Windows.

Millard died, aged 34, from interstitial lung disease following treatment for extragonadal germ cell cancer originally diagnosed in August 2005.