VSLive! Dallas 2008

Conference Speakers

	Conference Chair Richard Hale Shaw, Richard Hale Shaw Group Richard Hale Shaw is the founder of the Richard Hale Shaw Group, which has consulted and trained software developers since 1993. He's created and chaired numerous technical conferences, including C# Live! and the Black Belt tracks of the VSLive! conference series. An articulate writer and speaker on topics dear to the hearts of software developers and an outspoken critic of broken devtools, Richard specializes in consulting and training on .NET programming in C# and Managed C++. Richard is a member of the INETA speakers bureau, and for his work supporting C#/.NET software developers, he's been recognized by Microsoft as a C# MVP since 2004. You can reach him at www.RichardHaleShawGroup.com.
	Scott Bellware Scott Bellware is a software product designer, developer, and agile coach living in Austin, TX. Scott teaches agile development practices and software production methodologies in workshops in the US and Canada. Scott is the founder of the AgileATX community of agile software practitioners in Austin. He is the organizer of the ALT.NET Open Space and Continuous Improvement conferences in Austin. Scott is a recipient of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional award.
	Miguel Castro, Infotek Consulting Group, Inc. Miguel Castro is a .NET consultant, author, speaker and trainer with over 20 years of IT experience with a background in full automation solutions encompassing all aspects of a project’s life cycle, including data gathering, architecture, design, development, documentation and training. He is a Microsoft MVP in the area of Visual Developer C#, recently awarded for 2005, and president of InfoTek Consulting Group, Inc., a provider of .NET consulting services to clients in the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan Area.
	Benjamin Day, Benjamin Day Consulting Benjamin Day is an independent consultant specializing in the design and development of web and Windows applications using Microsoft .NET technologies. Ben also provides consulting and training on Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server via the Richard Hale Shaw Group. He is a Microsoft MVP for C#, speaker at VSLive! and other conferences, and the leader of the Beantown.NET INETA User Group in Boston. When not developing software, Ben plays piano with a Boston-based jazz trio and is an enthusiastic restaurant, food, beer and wine buff. He can be contacted via www.benday.com.
	Gus Emery, Magenic Gus Emery is a Senior Consultant with Magenic, one of the nation's premier Microsoft Gold Certified Partners. Gus has over fourteen years experience architecting and implementing highly-scalable ASP.Net applications and distributed n-tiered applications across a broad array of industries within the Twin Cities area. Gus has been working with .Net since Beta #1, and loves to seek out new and exciting technologies to serve his customers technological needs!
	Josef Finsel
	Ken Getz, MCW Technologies Ken Getz is a developer, writer and trainer, working as a senior consultant with MCW Technologies, LLC, a Microsoft Solution Provider. He is a lead courseware author and trainer for AppDev, and has written and presented video courses covering C# and Visual Basic 2005, ASP.NET 2.0, ADO.NET 2.0 and more. Ken has co-authored several technical books for developers, including the best-selling ASP.NET Developer's Jumpstart, Access Developer's Handbook series, and VBA Developer's Handbook series. Ken is a technical editor for Advisor Publications' VB.NET Technical Journal, and he's a columnist for both MSDN Magazine and CoDe magazine. Ken speaks regularly at a large number of industry events, including Advisor Media's Advisor Live events, VSLive!, and Microsoft's Tech-Ed.
	Todd Girvin As Vice President of Improving Enterprises, Inc., Mr. Girvin leads the Microsoft Technology Practice and is a member of the company's board of directors. Mr. Girvin co-founded Improving Enterprises in August, 2004. He has a history of deep technical expertise in C++, Smalltalk, Java, and Microsoft.NET. As a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD), he works with a variety of customers and contributes to the community through involvement with the International Association of Software Architects, Agile Project Leadership Network, DFW SharePoint User Group, and Dallas C# SIG, among others. Prior to Improving, Mr. Girvin was VP of Product Delivery at One Technologies and VP of Product Development at Roku Technologies. He started his career as a Technology Consultant and spent five years as Principal Technologist and Technical Director at ObjectSpace.
	Jackie Goldstein, Renaissance Computer Systems Jackie is a Microsoft Regional Director, a Microsoft MVP, the founder and monthly host of the Israel VB User Group, and is a featured speaker at international developer events including VSLive!, TechEd, Microsoft Developer Days, and Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC). Jackie works closely with Microsoft in the U.S., Israel, and throughout Europe. He was chosen by Microsoft as the Microsoft Regional Director of the Year for 1999 and also received the 2004 Outstanding Regional Director Award.
	Robert Green, MCW Technologies Robert Green is a senior consultant with MCW Technologies, a Microsoft Certified Partner. Before joining MCW, Robert worked at Microsoft for 8 years, most recently as a Program Manager on the Visual Basic product team and previously as a Product Manager for Visual Studio, Visual Basic, Visual Studio Tools for Office and Visual FoxPro. Prior to joining Microsoft, Robert was a Vice President and co-founder of The Information Management Group, a consulting and education services firm in Chicago. Robert has been a frequent speaker at technology conferences, including TechEd, VSLive! Along with co-author Ken Getz, Robert co-authored AppDev’s Developing Applications with Visual Studio 2005 courseware, and appears in the video training for these courses, as well.
	Josh Holmes Josh Holmes is a RIA Architect Evangelist with Microsoft focused on building and educating the dev partners with a Rich Internet Application offering in Central Region. Prior to joining Microsoft in October 2006, Josh was a consultant working with a variety of clients ranging from large Fortune 500 firms to smaller sized companies. Josh is a frequent speaker and lead panelist at national and international software development conferences focusing on emerging technologies, software design and development with an emphasis on mobility and RIA (Rich Internet Applications). Community focused, Josh has founded and/or run many technology organizations from the Great Lakes Area .NET Users Group to the Ann Arbor Computer Society and was on the forming committee for CodeMash. You can contact Josh through his blog at http://www.joshholmes.com.
	Rob Howard, Telligent Rob Howard, CEO and Founder, drives the corporate vision and growth for Telligent®. An expert in planning and growing web communities, Rob is a pioneer in developing enterprise-ready social computing solutions. Whether it's working with organizations such as Dell to plan and implement their single-vendor platform strategy or working with large social community customers such as MySpace.com or Microsoft, Rob is determined to help organizations of any size apply the value of social media communities to their business. Prior to founding Telligent, Rob contributed to the development and adoption of Microsoft's Web platform technologies where he helped build and grow the popular www.asp.net community. He has authored several books on the topic of software development and speaks around the globe at conferences on the topics of social computing and general software development.
	Richard Hundhausen, Accentient Richard Hundhausen has 25 years of software and database development experience and over 15 years of training experience. As the president of Accentient, he and his company primarily focus on Application Lifecycle Management consulting and training. Always an advocate for the developer, Richard's distractions often take him to the intersection of .NET and SQL Server development.
	Caleb Jenkins Caleb Jenkins is a training mentor and consultant with Improving Enterprises, National Speaker for INETA, Microsoft MVP, featured presenter for xTrain.com and Adobe.TV, technical editor for Wrox Publishing and certified Scrum Master. Improving Enterprises, Inc specializes in delivering enterprise solutions, agile methodologies and mentoring on the Microsoft and Java platforms.
	Michael S. Jones Michael spends his workdays at Passport Health Communications, working on a transaction processing system used by hospitals and clinics across the country. At Passport, Michael has the benefit of working with a great group of developers. Michael authors developer-focused architectural articles for national publications, speaks at developer conferences, and provides consulting expertise to clients nationwide.
	David Laribee
	Vishwas Lele, Applied Information Sciences Vishwas Lele is a Principal Architect at Applied Information Sciences where he has been involved in the design and development of .NET based applications for a number of clients. Vishwas has been a speaker at a number of developer events and has also authored many magazine articles and white papers on the .NET technology. Vishwas serves as the Microsoft Regional Director for the Washington, D.C. area. He is also a Solution Architecture MVP.
	Raymond Lewallen Working primarily in the public sector during his career, Raymond has designed and built several high profile enterprise level applications for all levels of the government. Raymond now works as a solutions architect for EMC designing and delivering enterprise solutions. Raymond is a Microsoft MVP C# and also president of the Oklahoma Agile Developers Group. Raymond spends a lot of his time learning and teaching such things as Test Driven Development, Behavior Driven Design, Domain Driven Design, Design Patterns and Extreme Programming practices and principles, to name a few.
	Rocky Lhotka, Magenic Technologies Rockford Lhotka is the author of the Expert VB 2005 Business Objects and Expert C# 2005 Business Objects books from Apress. He is a contributing author for Visual Studio Magazine and he speaks at major conferences around the world. Rockford is the Principal Technology Evangelist for Magenic Technologies, one of the nation's premiere Microsoft Gold Certified Partners.
	Jesse Liberty, Microsoft Corporation Jesse Liberty is a Microsoft Senior Program Manager in the Silverlight Development Division whose business card reads “Silverlight Geek”. He is responsible for development of material to facilitate the learning and use of Silverlight and to foster a Silverlight Developer community. Jesse is the author of numerous international bestselling books and articles, including O'Reilly Media's forthcoming Programming Silverlight, Programming .NET 3.5, Programming C# 3.0 with Visual Studio 2008 and Learning ASP.NET with AJAX. Jesse has over two decades experience programming, consulting and training and has been, during that time, a Distinguished Software Engineer at AT&T; Chief Architect for PBS/Learning Link; Vice President of Human Information Technology at Citibank; and Microsoft MVP.
	Leonard Lobel, Sleek Technologies, Inc. Leonard Lobel is the chief technology officer (CTO) and cofounder of Sleek Technologies, Inc., a New York–based development shop with an early adopter philosophy toward new technologies. He is also a principal consultant at twentysix New York, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Programming since 1979, Lenni specializes in Microsoft-based solutions, with experience that spans a variety of business domains, including publishing, financial, wholesale/retail, health care, and e-commerce. Lenni has served as chief architect and lead developer for various organizations, ranging from small shops to high-profile clients. He is also a consultant, trainer, and frequent speaker at local usergroup meetings, VSLive, SQL PASS, and other industry conferences. Lenni is also lead author in the new MS Press book "Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2008". He can be reached at lenni.lobel@26ny.com.
	Trent Nix Trent Nix is a Dallas, Texas-based consultant with Notion Solutions, a consulting services firm helping companies improve their software development capabilities through the use of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System. Trent is a frequent speaker on Team System and application lifecycle management topics at user groups and industry events. When he's not immersed in the ins and outs of software process and Team System, Trent hacks away at web application development and Silverlight. Contact Trent at www.trentnix.net.
	John Papa, ASPSOFT John is a Microsoft C# MVP and INETA Speaker who has enterprise experience architecting and developing with .NET technologies focusing on architecture, patterns and practices, data access and mobile development. John has authored or co-authored several books on data access technologies, is the author of the "Data Points" column in MSDN Magazine, and most recently John is the author of Data Access with Silverlight 2 by O’Reilly. He can often be found speaking at industry conferences such as VSLive. Contact John at www.johnpapa.net
	Roger Sessions, ObjectWatch Roger Sessions is the CTO of ObjectWatch. His ObjectWatch Newsletter is now in its thirteenth year of publication. He has written six books including Software Fortresses; Modeling Enterprise Architectures and many articles. He is on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Software Architects, Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives of the International Association of Software Architects, and a Microsoft™ recognized MVP in Enterprise Architecture. He has given talks in more than 30 countries, 70 cities and 100 conferences on the topic of Enterprise Architecture.
	Michiel van Otegem Michiel van Otegem is Chief Software Architect and co-owner at BataviaLabs operating in the Netherlands. Michiel is specialized in Microsoft technologies, XML and service orientation, and is a .NET pioneer giving the first .NET 1.0 training in the Netherlands on beta 1. He has written numerous articles and 4 books, including Sams Teach Yourself XSLT in 21 Days. He is the founder of the Dutch .NET User Group (dotNed), co-founder of the community website ASPNL.com, and is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional since 2003.
	William Vaughn William (Bill) Vaughn is an industry-recognized author, mentor, and subject-matter expert. He’s been in the computer industry for over thirty years - He’s worked with mainframe, minicomputer, and personal computer systems as a developer, manager, trainer, marketer, support person, and writer. After 14 years at Microsoft, Bill stepped away to work on his new books and training seminars. His area of specialization is focused on data access and especially Visual Basic and SQL Server. He’s written six editions of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server (published by Microsoft Press) and two editions of ADO.NET and ADO Examples and Best Practices for Visual Basic Programmers. There’s even a C# version, ADO.NET Examples and Best Practices for C# Programmers.
	David Walker David Walker is the current board member for INETA (Vice President, Speakers Bureau), President of the Tulsa Developers .NET users group, founder and President of the Tulsa SQL Server Group and Tulsa Java Developers, Vice President of the Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group. He has over 15 years experience in application development with over 50% of that employed as a consultant with companies such as Texaco, Bank of Oklahoma, Winnercomm, Inc. and IBM Global Services. He is currently a Technical Specialist in the Microsoft Practice Area for The Revere Group, an NTT Data Company. He has been an MCP since 2003 and MCAD and MCSD since 2005. He became a Microsoft MVP - ASP/ASP.NET in July 2007.
	Bill Wolff, Agility Systems Bill Wolff is an independent consultant, trainer and architect specializing in Microsoft development technologies. His company, Agility Systems, is based in the Philadelphia area. He ran the consulting firm Wolff Data Systems for 15 years and directed armies of consultants in the dot com world. Bill is founder and president of the philly.net user group, board member for INETA (Vice President, Speaker Bureau), and he is active in several other user communities. Bill was a contributing author to several books and articles. His certifications include trainer, systems engineer, developer and Microsoft MVP for VB.NET.