In fact he was a co-worker of Tim Vroom's.

I didn't join BlockStackers until late summer 2000. I had contributed to the Everything Engine before this point, before Everything2 came about. It was everything.slashdot.org in those days. I believe PerlMonks was the first real use of the newer version of EE (0.8 compared to 0.7), but I don't remember when E2 started versus when PM started.

As I recall, the site was first open to the public just before Christmas in 1999. I may have had some inside knowledge, thanks to contributing a few patches and discussing some design with Nate Oostendorp on EE, but I don't believe I'd met vroom even virtually before PM started.