Mike Grehan - SEO Pioneers (The history of SEO) 

Jill's HighRankings Forum opened sometime around 2005 I think, after Jill and Scottie Clayborn had first worked together at Cre8asite Forums. Jill had been active as a moderator on the IHY Forum prior to her involvement with Cre8asite. Mike and I first really connected thanks to Peter Da Vanzo, another Moderator at Cre8asite who, rather like Jill, had come to us after first being involved with the IHY (IHelpYou) forums. Peter had just started Search Engine Blog, and was interviewing various folks he liked, and Mike and I were kind of in back-to-back interviews. It gave me an ice-breaker to bring up and introduce myself to Mike in person at SES in London. My recollection of the times is that the vast majority of early SEOs were webmasters and web designers, often for their own projects or hobby sites, and not previously involved in Marketing of any kind. Thus people like Mike and Peter Da Vanzo really stood out for me as fellows interested (and experienced) in that side of the equation, the more persuasion and human focused side, rather than coming at everything as a coding problem to solve.