Event Speakers
Keynote Speaker
Arpan Shah, Microsoft SharePoint Team Director
Arpan Shah is a Director on the SharePoint Product Management team in Redmond. Arpan has been in the Internet Business space for over 10 years and started his Microsoft career in 2001 to lead the Content Management Server (CMS) technical product management effort. Over the last 8 years, he has been involved with subsequent SharePoint releases including SharePoint Server 2007. Arpan currently manages the team that owns audience and platform product management for SharePoint.
Session Speakers
What is an MVP? What is an MCM?
Allan Hirt
Allan Hirt has been using SQL Server in various guises since 1992. For the past ten years, he has been consulting, training, developing content, speaking at events, and authoring books, whitepapers, and articles related to SQL Server architecture, high availability, administration, and more. His most recent book Pro SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering (Apress) was released in June, 2009. He has also authored various articles for SQL Server Magazine. Before forming his own consulting company Megahirtz in 2007, he most recently worked for both Microsoft and Avanade. He still continues to not only work closely with Microsoft on various projects including contributing to the recently published SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide, but also works with Solid Quality Mentors as well. He can be contacted through his website http://www.sqlha.com.
Andrew Karcher, SQL Server MVP
As a consultant with Clarity Consulting for more than eight years, Andrew's duties include architecting and developing client/server and Web applications for a variety of customers in diverse industries such as transportation, financial services, and hospitality. Andrew is a 2-Time Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Microsoft SQL Server and he serves multiple roles within the community. He is president of the San Diego .Net User Group, a board member for the San Diego SQL Server Users Group, and is the INETA User Group Mentor for Southern California. He has presented to user groups, code camps and TechNet events across the United States on topics such as SQL Server Development, Business Intelligence, Microsoft .NET development, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. You can catch up with Andrew on his blog.
Andrew J. Kelly, SQL Server MVP
Andrew J. Kelly is the Practice Manager for Performance & Scalability with Solid Quality Mentors and lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He has over 20 years experience with relational databases and application development on both UNIX and Windows platforms but his main focus now is SQL Server. In addition to general SQL Server training and Mentoring he specializes in Performance, Scalability and Maintainability of large scale SQL Servers. He is a regular speaker each year at many conferences and user groups and has been a SQL Server MVP since 2001.
Andrew Woodward, SharePoint MVP
Andrew Woodward (MVP) is founder and Principal Consultant at 21apps, a small consultancy with an emphasis on providing community support and expert consultancy around the expanding SharePoint platform. Andrews day job is usually as Technical Architect / Development Lead for large SharePoint projects focused on the Education arena and has a specific interest in the community initiatives Microsoft Learning Gateway, SharePoint Learning Kit and the Community Kit for SharePoint. Andrew has been involved in development since starting his career and is passionate about agile development, covering every aspect from introducing agile management techniques like Scrum to the technical challenges of unit testing and developer adoption. Andrew is an advocate of community collaboration and speaks regularly at the UK SharePoint User Group and helps others through his blog. Andrew has also taken on the challenge of providing developer courses for Combined Knowledge to help other people get the most from their SharePoint development and to help people through the challenges this can bring.
Benjamin Curry, SharePoint MVP 
Ben Curry - (CISSP, MVP) - is a Microsoft MVP and a highly respected enterprise architect specializing in knowledge management and collaboration technologies. As a senior instructor for Mindsharp, Ben shares his knowledge in training courses that cover the next generation of Microsoft products. Ben is the author or co-author of three books for SharePoint products and technologies, including the newly-released Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices by Microsoft Press. Ben has over fifteen years of experience designing, managing, implementing and securing data center IT solutions.
Bill English, SharePoint MVP 
Bill English - (MCSE, MCSA, MVP, MCT) - is an industry leader, author, and educator specializing in the exciting SharePoint Products and Technologies product set from Microsoft. In his role at Mindsharp, Bill focuses on emerging technical changes in SharePoint to ensure Mindsharp continues to provide cutting-edge training and business solutions. Bill draws on his expertise in knowledge management and collaboration technologies to teach and consult worldwide about powerful customized solutions based on the SharePoint platform. Microsoft has acknowledged Bill’s professional contributions to the SharePoint Portal Server platform by awarding him the prestigious title of Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for six consecutive years. Since 2000, Bill has authored 11 books on Exchange and SharePoint products, including the newly-released Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices by Microsoft Press.
Bradley T. Smith, CEO BlackBlade Associates
Bradley Thomas Smith is a business owner and entrepreneur living and working in Northern Virginia. He became involved in software development and consulting using Microsoft technologies after serving a tour in the United States Marine Corps. In 2005, Bradley founded Black Blade Associates, Inc. to provide high quality solutions to customers in the public and private sectors. Several individuals of exceptional ability have joined the firm, and Black Blade has established partnerships with several key systems integrators, consultant firms, and vendors in the Washington DC/Metro area and the Microsoft market segments. Personally, his work with MS Office server product teams led him to be provided a seat on the Office Developer Advisory Council in 2004, allowing Bradley to contribute towards upcoming Office Server products and subsequently, the Office 12 Technology Adoption Program. Bradley was awarded the Microsoft "Most Valued Professional" award several times for his continuing contributions in the general community for the next versions of SharePoint Products and Technologies and continuing dedication to work with and grow the defense and commercial markets for Microsoft business software.
Brett Lonsdale, Owner - Lightning Tools
Brett Lonsdale (MCT, MCSD, MCAD, MCTS ) specializes in the Business Data Catalog for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Enterprise 2007. Brett is co owner of Lightning Tools Ltd which is a UK based company that produces Tools & Web Parts for SharePoint. Brett has authored the recent ‘Developers Guide to The Business Data Catalog' by Manning Press, along with contributing to the ‘Administrators Guide to SharePoint 2007' and ‘The Developers Guide to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0'. Brett is based on Anna Maria Island, Florida where he helps develop and project manage Lightning Tools software.
Burzin Patel, SQL Server Customer Advisory Team
Burzin Patel is a Senior Program Manager focused on strategic ERP and Retail ISVs. His responsibilities span the entire life-cycle of ISV products - starting with development, to helping customers deploy with the most optimal solutions on SQL Server. He also works very closely with the SQL Server development team and has been a key contributor for many of the features introduced in SQL Server 2005. Burzin has a Master's degree in Computer Engineering and did his thesis in processor design and C compiler development, both areas in which he holds several patents. Burzin recently co-authored the SQL Server 2005 - Administrator's Companion book
Chris Keyser, Microsoft Principal Program Manager of Microsoft Patterns and Practices
Chris works on a team at Microsoft that publishes guidance on proven patterns and practices for solution architects and developers. Chris has worked at Microsoft for six years with previous positions in Office as the Group Program Manager for Duet, and as the lead architect for the Global ISV team. Prior to joining Microsoft Chris worked as a developer, developer lead, and development manager at a series of startups including VerticalNet, InterWorld, TNetix, and Linear Switch on web, server, and embedded system development.
Chris is currently working on the second release of SharePoint guidance to be delivered at the end of July. You can find V1 release at http://www.microsoft.com/spg. V2 release will be focusing on three major areas: building enterprise class SharePoint applications (focusing on scale and supportability), content oriented SharePoint applications (publishing, authoring, and composition, flexible navigation), and integrating line of business data. The work in progress can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/spg.
Craig Utley, SQL Server MVP
Craig Utley is a SQL Server MVP, a Mentor with Solid Quality Mentors and a former Program Manager with the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) where he focused on Business Intelligence. Craig has been involved in the Microsoft BI space since the betas of SQL Server 7.0, when he helped write Microsoft's first data warehousing course. Since then he has consulted at a variety of businesses worldwide on their BI solutions as an independent consultant, a ProClarity consultant, and a member of SQLCAT. Thanks to his time on SQLCAT, Craig has seen some of the largest Microsoft data warehouses in the world and has worked directly with the Analysis Services development team. Craig is also a former MVP in C#, which he had to give up when he joined Microsoft in May 2006. Craig is a current member of the INETA Speaker's Bureau and maintains an interest in the .NET space. He is the author of over 35 articles and 3 books, the most recent of which is about PerformancePoint Server 2007.
Darrin Bishop, SharePoint MVP
Darrin Bishop is an author and technology evangelist focusing on Microsoft SharePoint Technologies. Darrin is a product evangelist for KnowledgeLake, a St. Louis-based Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Technologies, ECM, document imaging and workflow. He is the author of The Rational Guide to Building SharePoint Web Parts published by Rational Press. Darrin has been working with SharePoint Technologies since the release of SharePoint Portal Server 2001.
Darvish Shadravan, Microsoft Senior Technology Specialist
Darvish ("D") Shadravan is a Senior Technology Specialist employed by Microsoft where most of his time is spent working with SharePoint, InfoPath, and related technologies. He has been at Microsoft for over 12 years in a variety of technical roles working directly with enterprise customers. Darvish holds MCTS-SharePoint, MCSE, and CISSP certifications.
David Mann, SharePoint MVP
David Mann is an MVP and an independent Developer, Software Architect, Author and Trainer focusing on Microsoft's Information Worker and Collaboration stack. He has been working with portal, collaboration, and content management technologies for over 14 years. He has designed and delivered solutions for Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and everything in between, across multiple verticals - always with a focus on making end user's lives easier and improving the organization's bottom line. As a contract trainer for the Critical Path Training, he helps students learn new technologies. Dave is the founder of the Philadelphia Office Geeks User Group, focused on developer and administrator topics covering SharePoint and the entire Office System. He is the author of Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System (Apress, 2007) and has written whitepapers for MSDN, articles for magazines and online sites. He presents regularly at SharePoint and Office user groups and code camps, and has presented or moderated sessions at major conferences, including Tech Ed, Microsoft's SharePoint Conference, the Microsoft Office Developer's Conference, and the SharePoint Best Practices Conference. Dave has also done MSDN webcasts on topics related to SharePoint development, and was a key member of the Community Kit for SharePoint: Enhanced Wiki Edition.
Dennis Martin, Storage MVP
Dennis Martin is the founder and President of Demartek, a computer industry analyst organization with its own test lab. Dennis has been working in the Information Technology industry for more than twenty-eight years, primarily involved in software development and project management in mainframe, UNIX, and Windows environments. These include a variety of large and small end-user customers, and engineering and marketing positions for storage vendors such as StorageTek. Dennis is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group in Denver, and served as its President for its first six years (1994-2000). Dennis was re-elected President of the group in May 2008. Dennis is a Microsoft Storage MVP for the years 2005-2009.
David J Pileggi Jr.
David has been working with SharePoint for the last 4 ½ years. He worked for the first 1 ½ years as an administrator for a SharePoint Portal server 2003 environment. The remainder of the time he have been a consultant building SharePoint solutions for wide range of companies, including several Fortune 500 companies. When not consulting he is busy teaching classes of SharePoint 101 for end users. Over the past several years David has built up extensive public speaking schedule around the nation. Before getting into IT, he made a living as an actor for two years at Universal Studios Florida.
Douglas McDowell, CEO - Solid Quality Mentors
Douglas McDowell is the CEO of North America for Solid Quality Mentors. He is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for SQL Server, has all the usual certifications and serves on the Board of Directors for the Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS). He is an author and contributing editor for SQL Server Magazine. Douglas completed his MBA at PennState's Smeal College of Business and also holds a Masters of Information Technology and a degree in Culinary Arts. Douglas is a passionate speaker about the value of Business Intelligence realized through successful architectures and implementations.
Dux Raymond Sy, PMP
With over 15 years of experience in Information Technology and Project Management, Dux (you're right, it's pronounced as "ducks") has earned a reputation as among the leading experts in leveraging technology to enhance project management. A certified Project Management Professional (PMP), he is currently a managing partner and the chief evangelist of Innovative-e, Inc., a Microsoft-certified, business technology consulting and services company that serves startups to Global 50 clients.
As a thought leader in maximizing project team collaboration, he is the author of "SharePoint for Project Management" published by O'Reilly Media. He is focused on empowering organizations on how to leverage the benefits of SharePoint technologies with quantifiable goals such as: Increasing productivity and efficiency, decreasing collaboration redundancies and streamlining electronic communications.
A sought after speaker, Dux has presented in various SharePoint and Project Management Institute (PMI) events. Additionally, he has facilitated management and technology workshops to various government organizations, Fortune 500 companies, non-profit institutions worldwide.
He regularly blogs on topics related to project management, SharePoint and globalization at MeetDux.com.
Ed Hild, Microsoft Technology Architect
Ed Hild is the Technology Architect at the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston, VA specializing in Portal and Collaboration solutions. At the MTC, he meets daily with both commercial- and public-sector customers to discuss business requirements and map them to the Microsoft platform. He helps customers understand product features, best practices, and necessary customizations for them to realize SharePoint's full potential. Ed is a dynamic speaker and has previously presented at Microsoft Dev Days, Tech Ed, and Microsoft SharePoint Conference events as well as many local area user groups. He recently published an advanced SharePoint developer book through Apress entitled: Pro SharePoint Solution Development and was included in the MSPress Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices book. Ed's previous experiences include a high school teacher, government contractor, and lead developer at a Microsoft partner.
Erik Veerman, SQL Server MVP
Erik Veerman (SQL Server MVP and Microsoft MCT) is a Mentor for Solid Quality Mentors focusing on training, mentoring and architecting solutions on the SQL Server BI platform. His industry recognition includes Microsoft's Worldwide BI Solution of the Year and SQL Server Magazine's Innovator Cup winner. Erik is the lead author for the SQL Server 2005 and 2008 BI Training Kits (MS Press 70-445 and 70-448)) and a co-author of the WROX Integration Services titles (Professional SSIS & Expert SSIS).
Erik has designed dozens of BI solutions across a broad business spectrum-telecommunications, marketing, retail, commercial real estate, finance, supply chain, and information technology. His experience with high volume multi-terabyte environments and SQL Server 64-bit has enabled clients to scale their Microsoft-based BI solutions for optimal potential. As an expert in OLAP design, ETL processing, and dimensional modeling, Erik is a presenter, author and instructor. He led the ETL architecture and design for the first production implementation of Integration Services (SSIS) and helped drive the ETL standards and best practices for SSIS on Microsoft's SQL Server 2005 reference initiative, Project REAL.
Eugene Rosenfeld, SharePoint MVP
Eugene Rosenfeld is the CTO of Black Blade Associates. He started his IT career as a database programmer and soon moved into enterprise application integration (EAI) and portal systems. Eugene holds a strong belief that all systems should have the innate ability to intelligently communicate with one another. Most recently he has been heavily involved with distributed systems architecture, Services Oriented Architected (SOA), peer-to-peer systems, and cloud computing.
Eugene believes that in order to develop the best applications of tomorrow, it is necessary to encourage developers to think differently about how systems should interact with users and other systems today. Eugene also holds a strong belief in mentoring others. He has put these beliefs into practice through many years of consulting services, developer training, community involvement, and ultimately by co-founding Black Blade.
Eugene has been recognized for his community involvement by Microsoft through their prestigious MVP program. Eugene also maintains his blog, "Things that Should be Easy". Check it out for tips that may make your current project a little easier.
Gert Drapers, Microsoft Software Architect
Gert Drapers is a Software Architect at Microsoft Corp, where he is working on the next generation directory services in the Identity and Security division. Before his current role he was the Lead Software Architect and Engineering Manager of the Visual Studio Team System Database Edition product, where he designed and developed the Declarative Database Development tooling which is shipping inside Visual Studio. Since joining Microsoft in 1991 Gert worked on various parts and releases of Microsoft SQL Server and the Transaction Management infrastructure (MS-DTC, WS-AtomicTransaction and System.Transactions).
Greg Low, SQL Server MVP, MCM
Greg Low - (Ph.D, MVP, MCM) - is an internationally recognized consultant, developer and trainer. He has been working in development since 1978 and holds a Ph.D. in computer science. Greg is the country lead for Solid Quality Mentors, a SQL Server MVP and one of only three Microsoft Regional Directors for Australia. Greg also hosts the popular SQL Down Under podcast (www.sqldownunder.com) and is the board member of PASS (the Professional Association for SQL Server) responsible for the global chapter program. He speaks regularly at SQL Server events around the world and is one of a handful of people to have achieved the new Masters level certification on SQL Server 2008.
Itzik Ben-Gan, SQL Server MVP
Itzik Ben-Gan is a Mentor and Co-Founder of Solid Quality Mentors. A SQL Server Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of several books including Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Fundamentals and Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008: T-SQL Querying. He has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and whitepapers for MSDN. Itzik's speaking activities include TechEd, DevWeek, SQLPASS, SQL Server Magazine Connections, various user groups around the world, and Solid Quality Mentors' events to name a few. Itzik is the author of Solid Quality Mentors' Advanced T-SQL Querying, Programming and Tuning and T-SQL Fundamentals courses along with being a primary resource within the company for their T-SQL related activities.
Jennifer Martinez
Jennifer Martinez (Microsoft Office Master Instructor) began her training career in 1999 moonlighting as an Office 97 trainer after she was discovered by a local training company. She has been in the classroom either full time, part time, or on a volunteer basis ever since. Her natural training ability, work experience, passion for the end user, and her understanding of business, people, and software makes her a highly effective speaker. When not teaching SharePoint, Jennifer loves to share her knowledge about Excel, Access, VBA, metrics, best practices, governance, user adoption, and much more. She has most often worked "on the front lines of business" and loves to help others who are "in the trenches".
Jeremy Kadlec, SQL Server MVP
Jeremy Kadlec is the CTO @ Edgewood Solutions, where he focuses on core SQL Server Administration and Development needs for organizations on the east coast of the United States. Jeremy has worked to help the SQL Server community by leading both the Northern Virginia SQL Server Users Group and the Baltimore SQL Server Users Group over the last 5+ years. He is a frequent speaker at local user group meetings and national conferences. He is also one of the founders of MSSQLTips.com where he has more than 200 contributions to the community in the form of valuable technical tips. In addition, the community has benefited from his book entitled the Rational Guide to IT Project Management. Based on all of his community contributions, Jeremy was awarded with SQL Server MVP recognition in 2009. Jeremy can be reached at jeremyk@edgewoodsolutions.com.
John Welch, SQL Server MVP
John Welch is Chief Architect with Mariner, a consulting firm specializing in enterprise reporting & analytics, data warehousing and performance management solutions. John has been working with business intelligence and data warehousing technologies for 7 years, with a focus on Microsoft products in heterogeneous environments. He is a Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP), an award given due to his commitment to sharing his knowledge with the IT community. John is an experienced speaker, having given presentations at Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conferences, the Microsoft Business Intelligence conference, Software Development West (SD West), Software Management Conference (ASM/SM), and others. He has also contributed to two recent books on SQL Server 2008, "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration" and "Smart Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008".
He is also active in open source projects that help ease the development process for Microsoft BI developers, including BIDS Helper (http://www.codeplex.com/bidshelper), an add-in for Business Intelligence Development Studio that adds commonly needed functionality to the environment. He is also the lead developer on ssisUnit (http://www.codeplex.com/ssisUnit), a unit testing framework for SSIS.
John's Business Intelligence blog
Kevin Kline, SQL Server MVP
Kevin Kline is the Technical Strategy Manager for SQL Server Solutions at Quest Software, a leading provider of award winning tools for database management and application monitoring on the SQL Server platform. A Microsoft SQL Server MVP since 2004, Kevin is a founding board member of the international Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) and served as president from 2002-2006. He is the lead author of SQL in a Nutshell and a co-author of Pro SQL Server 2005 Database Design and Optimization and Database Benchmarking: Practical Methods for Oracle & SQL Server. Kevin writes monthly columns for SQL Server Magazine and Database Trends & Applications and blogs at SQLBlog.com and SQLMag.com. Kevin is a top rated speaker, appearing at international conferences like Microsoft TechEd, the PASS Community Summit, Microsoft IT Forum, DevTeach,and SQL Connections. When he's not pulling his hair out over work, he loves spending time with his four kids and in his garden.
Lindsey Allen, SQL Server Customer Advisory Team
Lindsey Allen has been working with SQL Server and Business Intelligence for the past 15+ years. She joint Microsoft Consulting Services summer of 1995 specializes on system architecture and database design. She transitioned to SQL Server Product Group SQLCAT team summer of 2005. Lindsey is currently managing SQLCAT Best Practice and Customer Lab team.
Mark Eichenberger, Microsoft Business Productivity Architect
Mark Eichenberger acquired over 25 years software development and project management experience working in a number of industries. During those years, he implemented various portal and ECM solutions with his most recent focus on SharePoint. Mark currently is employed by Microsoft as a Business Productivity Architect assisting customers in the Mid-Atlantic region with their SharePoint needs.
Michael Herman
Michael Herman is SharePoint Solutions Architect and Development Manager at Envision IT, a Toronto based enterprise software solutions, services and training provider for the Microsoft SharePoint business collaboration platform. Previously, Michael worked as a principal consultant for Parallelspace Corporation, a senior consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services and as a member of the SharePoint product group. Michael has Bachelor of Mathematics and Masters of Mathematics degrees in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. Michael has more than 20 years of experience developing Microsoft Windows applications. In addition he has authored more than 20 technical publications for the Microsoft SharePoint Product Group and Microsoft IT as well as been an invited speaker on more than 10 occasions. Lastly, Michael is a certified Mindsharp SharePoint Developer Instructor and has taught dozens of students how to develop custom SharePoint solutions using a best practices approach. When not immersed in his laptop, Michael is an avid scuba diver, downhill skier, tennis player and Alberta cattle rancher.
Paul Culmsee, Director - Seven Sigma Business Solutions
Paul Culmsee, MCSE (NT4/W2K), CISSP, MCT, MCTS and former CCNP, is a native of Perth, Western Australia and has worked in IT for 20 years in a wide variety of roles and organisations. Paul is the director of Seven Sigma Business Solutions - a consulting practice that provides facilitation, strategic planning, sense-making, training, governance and project management services with a particular focus on Office SharePoint Server 2007. Paul is the author of the popular SharePoint blog CleverWorkarounds.com and is a contributing author for SharePointMagazine.net and EnduserSharepoint.com. He is also a competent application developer, having authored the freeware application EZ-Rent - a free property tax and cash flow analyser for Australian property investors
Paul Stork, SharePoint MVP
Paul Stork is a SharePoint Server MVP who has specialized in Microsoft products since the mid-1990s. As a "Jack of all Trades" he has developed expertise as a network administrator, developer, and DBA. For the last several years his primary area of expertise has been Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Paul works as a consultant/trainer for Mindsharp where his breadth of knowledge makes him ideally suited to teach custom courses that combine modules from their Administrative, Development, and SharePoint Designer courses. His 20+ years of experience and broad background make Paul a much sought after resource for SharePoint questions that involve both administration and development issues. Paul is a contributing author to several books including Developer's Guide to Windows SharePoint Services v3 Platform and SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices.
Paul Schaeflein, SharePoint MVP
Paul Schaeflein (MVP, MCTS) is an application developer with experience in all versions of the SharePoint platform. Paul has managed and worked on development teams building applications on SharePoint. As an instructor, Paul brings this real-world experience to the classroom. Paul is an active writer, providing contributions to books, online periodicals, numerous CodePlex projects and his weblog. Paul has presented at many user groups and code camps, as well as the SharePoint Best Practices Conference. Currently, Paul is on the advisory committee for Microsoft's patterns & practices group, working on SharePoint Guidance.
Paul has more than two decades experience in architecting, designing and developing software solutions. This experience covers a vast range of technologies, languages and industries. Having developed many line-of-business applications, Paul has a firm grasp on the challenges that corporate developers face when integrating them into a corporate portal.
Peter Serzo
Peter Serzo (MCSD .Net, MCP, MCTS) is a published author, a founder of the SouthEastern Michigan SharePoint group, and works for Trillium Teamologies as a SharePoint Architect. Peter has been in the IT industry for 20 years. He has extensive experience with SharePoint implementing solutions for several enterprise organizations over the past six years.
Using a varied background, including a degree in English, Peter brings a fresh perspective to each engagement and the clients he represents. Each session he presents is told in story mode in order to engage and educate. This type of communications presents SharePoint technology in an understandable format, including best practices that are immediately accessible.
You can follow Peter on twitter: pserzo or on his website at www.sharepointusermagic.com.
Randy Dyess
Randy is mentor with Solid Quality Mentors and has a large variety of experiences dealing with SQL Server over the past 15 years and has worked with environments with Terabytes of data and environments that had over a 1000 databases with only a few megabytes of data in each database. Currently Randy specializes in training and mentoring with a focus on topics pertaining to SQL Server OLTP systems.
Randy is the author of TransactSQL Language Reference Guide, coauthor of MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Implementation and Maintenance (Exam 70-431) and numerous magazine and newsletter articles pertaining to SQL Server and has spoken at various international and national conferences.
Randy and maintains a website at www.SQLServerManagement.com.
Rick Taylor
Rick is a SharePoint architect and has assisted numerous, large companies in their implementations in high profile industries such as Defense, Financial, Manufacturing, and Health Care. He is a published author, co-author, and contributing author including the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrator's Companion by MS Press. Rick worked for Microsoft in the Business Online Services division as a member of the SharePoint Platform Architecture Team. Rick is an avid Triathlete (Clydesdale class), enjoys playing chess and is active in the Boy Scouts of America. There's a reason they call him Slick Rick...come and find out for yourself why!
Rushabh Mehta, SQL Server MVP
Rushabh Mehta - (MVP) - is a Mentor for Solid Quality Mentors' global Business Intelligence division, and is also the Managing Director for Solid Quality India Pvt. Ltd.
Rushabh has been actively working with Microsoft SQL Server platform since 1998 and has been designing and developing large-scale BI systems since 2001, including predictive-analysis systems, health-care solutions as well as a multi-terabyte financial decision support system. Rushabh was also instrumental in designing and building an analytical platform to support the Microsoft Windows Azure platform. His experience spans a wide breadth of industrial sectors including manufacturing, retail, finance and government working with clients such as Raymond James Financials, Jackson Hewitt, Publix, US Dept of Veterans Affairs, US Dept of Defense and Microsoft.
Through his experiences, Rushabh has also developed a number of industry best practices. He has also developed and delivered training courses on Business Intelligence practices and technologies and is also an active speaker at a number of large conferences like PASS and TechEd and also frequently speaks at SQL Server and Business Intelligence user groups around the world. Rushabh also serves as the Executive Vice President of Finance for the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), which is the largest global user-driven community for SQL Server Professionals with over 170 chapters world-wide and over 45,000 members.
Ruven Gotz
Ruven Gotz is a senior consultant with Ideaca, a Microsoft Gold Partner based in Toronto. For the past five years he has been focused on delivering award-winning SharePoint solutions (most recently, a Microsoft Impact Award for Information Worker Solution of the Year, 2008).
Working as a Business Analyst and Information Architect, Ruven is able to apply his eclectic education and varied experience in Psychology, Computer Science, Economics, Business, Software Development and Training to get to the heart of complex problems.
Ruven is a great communicator who is able to discuss technology concepts in language that is relevant to his audience, whether they are from I.T. or business.
When he wants to get away from computers, you'll find Ruven at the week-night races on Lake Ontario, sailing his keelboat, "In the Groove".
You can follow him at http://twitter.com/ruveng.
Sahil Malik, SharePoint MVP
Sahil Malik has been a Microsoft MVP & INETA Speaker for many years, author of many books and numerous articles, consultant and trainer who delivers training and talks at conferences internationally. His talks are full of humor and practical nuggets. His talks tend to get very highly charged, fast moving, and highly interactive. Sahil likes to maintain a balance and learn as much as possible of all Microsoft technologies, and thus completely ignores balance in his life. He still thinks COM was cool.
Stacia Misner, Founder & Principal - Data Inspirations
Stacia Misner is a business intelligence consultant, educator, and author as well as the founder and principal of Data Inspirations. For 25 years, she has helped organizations improve business practices through better implementation of technology, and for the past 9 years she has concentrated on providing services in support of the Microsoft BI stack. Stacia has written feature articles about BI for SQL Server Magazine and has also authored several Microsoft Press books focused on BI and SQL Server. Her latest book, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Step by Step, was released earlier this year. Stacia teaches classes around the world, enlivening her course materials with insights, tips, best practices, and plenty of interaction to help students connect theory to actual practice. Outside of the classroom, she regularly participates in BI projects in a variety of roles, including project manager, architect, requirements analyst, and developer. This breadth of experience gives Stacia exposure to many industries and business problems to which best practices can be applied for the effective use of BI in any organization.
Steve Smith, SharePoint MVP
Steve Smith (MVP-SharePoint Server) is the owner of Combined Knowledge in the UK and Combined Knowledge Asia Pacific providing Microsoft SharePoint Technical Training courses and Consultancy. Steve is well travelled spending most of last 20 years travelling in the US and South Asia for the companies he owned and worked with including achieving his first qualification with Microsoft technologies on NT 4 and IIS 3 in New Delhi India in 1998 whilst based there for 3 years. Although tinkering with computers since early Teenage years Steve has specialized with Microsoft's systems since 1996 and been involved in many Microsoft Beta programs including Windows 2000, Exchange 2000 and SharePoint. The last 6 years however has seen a majority of his time with SharePoint and running the Mindsharp and Combined Knowledge SharePoint courses in the UK, Europe and Asia Pacific, also helping many UK based companies with their SharePoint Implementations including the US Air Force, The Ministry of Defence and Several Blue chip companies. Steve is a Co Organiser of the UK SharePoint User Group http://www.suguk.org and Co Author of the SharePoint 2007 Administrators Companion from MS Press.
Steve lives in South Leicestershire, England with his wife and 3 children and can be contacted on steve@combined-knowledge.com
Todd Bleeker, SharePoint MVP .jpg "Todd Bleeker")
Todd Bleeker - (Ph.D. and MVP) - is an industry leader in Microsoft-centric software development, specializing in SharePoint products and technologies. Todd is an innovative, resourceful, and competitive technologist with an intense desire to excel. Todd has authored or co-authored several books on Microsoft's integrated suite of products, including Developer's Guide to Windows SharePoint Services v3 Platform and Step by Step series Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by Microsoft Press. Todd has been awarded the title of Most Valuable Professional (MVP) by Microsoft for his contributions to the SharePoint Server Platform and community. He has and he is a regular contributor to Web sites such as Microsoft TechNet.
Vishwas Lele, CTO - Applied Information Sciences
Vishwas Lele is a Chief Technology Officer at Applied Information Sciences, Inc, where he has worked for the last fourteen years. In his current role, he is responsible for assisting organizations in envisioning, designing, and implementing enterprise solutions that are based on the .NET technologies. Vishwas also serves as the Microsoft Regional Director for the Washington DC area. As a Microsoft endorsed expert, he is regularly consulted by clients for his insight and informed perspective on implementing .NET based solutions. A regular industry speaker and author, he has presented at a number industry conferences as well as community user groups
William Vaughn, Visual Basic MVP
William (Bill) Vaughn is an industry-recognized author, mentor and subject-matter expert on Visual Studio, SQL Server, Reporting Services and data access technologies. He's worked in the computer industry for over thirty-seven years. In 2000, after 14 years at Microsoft, Bill stepped away to work on his books, consulting, mentoring and independent training seminars. His latest books include Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Studio and SQL Server (7th Edition) and Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server Compact Edition. He and Peter Blackburn also wrote the critically acclaimed Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. He's available for consulting, mentoring or custom training. See http://www.betav.com/.
Zlatan Dzinic, SharePoint MVP
Zlatan's primary role is an Enterprise Content Management Lead, System Architect/Lead Developer and an Enterprise Content Management/Enterprise Architecture Consultant, he also comes from an extensive Enterprise Content Management product background (including Business Intelligence), working, providing solutions and managing projects for the Public Sector (Local, Provincial and National Government) and also Corporate Sector (Mining, Retail, Telecommunications, Oil, Manufacturing, Banking and Tourism Industry) with a strong Business and Technical background, working as a Technical Lead/System Architect as well as Project Manager or a Best Practices Consultant on large Enterprise Content Management projects and Enterprise Strategy Initiatives.
His main focus is Developing and Architecting Enterprise Content Management (Document and Records Management), including Business Process Management, Business Intelligence and Performance Management Solutions as well as Office Business Applications (full blown end to end enterprise industry solutions).
He's a guest speaker at International and National Microsoft Conferences and he also presents at Local Community events on the topics of Enterprise Content Management, SharePoint Server and Technologies, Business Intelligence and Office Business Applications.