Sessions and Speakers are subject to change without notice
Sunil Agarwal, Microsoft Sunil Agarwal is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Storage Engine Group at Microsoft. He is responsible for concurrency, indexes, tempdb, LOBS, supportability, and bulk import/export. Prior to joining Microsoft, Sunil worked at DEC, Sybase, BMC Software and DigitalThink, focusing primarily on core database engine technologies and related applications.
Gopal Ashok, Microsoft Gopal Ashok is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Replication team. He has been with Microsoft since 1999 and has been with the support organization working as an Escalation Engineer before moving to the SQL product team in January of 2006. Gopal has been working with replication technologies since SQL Server 7.0 and over the last year and half has been involved in delivering key features for SQL Server 2008, one of which is Change Data Capture.
Fernando Azpeitia Lopez, Microsoft Fernando joined Microsoft as a Program Manager two years ago and owns the Full-Text Search (FTS) component of SQL Server. Besides the large amount of interesting work to do in Full-Text Search in SQL Server, he focuses some of his time on the whole Search scenario at Microsoft, trying to have regular contact with other Microsoft Search solutions like Windows Desktop Search, MOSS, etc… If you want to Search and find what you are looking for in SQL Server, Fernando is the guy to talk to. You can send e-mail to Fernando at fernlope@microsoft.com.
Todd Baginski, Fresh Tracks Consulting, LLC Todd began working with WSS and SPS in the beta stages of the products, in 2003. He has architected and implemented intranets, extranets, wireless deployments, and several custom applications with the WSS and SPS platforms. Todd created the first SharePoint advanced development training curriculum in the training industry for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Two versions in a row, Todd broke ground in the training industry by being the first to offer advanced developr training for SharePoint! Todd speaks at many SharePoint conferences including the Microsoft SharePoint Conference, Microsoft TechEd, and SharePoint Connections. He has also spoken at Microsoft events at the Microsoft offices in both Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has also presented several sessions at the Rocky Mountain SharePoint User’s Group.
Todd is also the content author and presenter for the BDC portion of the SharePoint Master Certification program. Most recently, Todd architected and led the team which developed the new sharepoint.microsoft.com and sharepoint2010.microsoft.com web sites. He enjoys spending time with his wife and their dogs, playing and coaching lacrosse, playing hockey, riding his bike in the Rocky Mountains, and skiing every chance he gets.
Boris Baryshnikov, Program Manager, Microsoft Boris Baryshnikov is a program manager in the SQL Server Relational Engine group. He is currently responsible for the Resource Governor project which spans both Storage and Relational Engines of SQL Server. During his time in SQL Server group Boris worked on various feature areas including SQL Server Failover Clustering, SQL OS Memory Management, and performance troubleshooting.
Itzik Ben-Gan, Solid Quality Mentors Itzik Ben-Gan is a Mentor and Founder of Solid Quality Learning. 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 Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (MSPress), Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming (MSPress), and a co-author of Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000 (APress). He has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and whitepapers for MSDN.
Julian M. Bucknall, Developer Express Julian M Bucknall is Chief Technology Officer for Developer Express. Julian is an experienced professional architect and designer, with design, analysis, and development expertise in a variety of object-oriented languages. Julian has wide experience in implementing commercial software and frameworks--most notably in the component, library, and tools markets--and has mentored and promoted agile methodologies for several years.
Miguel Castro, IDesign, Inc. Miguel is an architect with IDesign and provides architectural and development services to clients worldwide. He is a Microsoft MVP, INETA speaker, ASP Insider, and has been in the software industry for over 20 years. With a Microsoft background that goes all the way back to Visual Basic 1.0 (and QuickBasic in fact), Miguel jumped on .NET as soon as the first public Beta was released and has provided .NET solutions for clients in a variety of industries. He considers himself to be a .NET Developer and Architect and has equal love for both Visual Basic and C#, with no tolerance for language bigotry. He’s spoken at numerous user groups around the country as well as developer conferences in the US and abroad. His Web site, where you can find many downloads, article code, and his commercial product, CodeBreeze, can be found at: www.steelbluesolutions.com. Miguel currently lives in Lincoln Park, NJ with his wife Elena and his daughter Victoria. You can find more of Miguel’s bio and his blog at: http://www.dotnetdude.com
Ben Curry, Summit 7 Systems Ben Curry (CISSP, MVP, MCP, MCT) is an author and enterprise network architect specializing in knowledge management and collaboration technologies. Ben is a Managing Partner at Summit 7 Systems, a company focused on the next generation of Microsoft products. Prior to launching Summit 7 Systems, Ben was an owner/partner at Mindsharp, the world leader in technical education for SharePoint. Ben’s philosophy is that the best solutions are inspired by the best ideas, and he encourages his team to generate and share ideas on a continuous basis. His philosophy is also exemplified in his numerous published books, and in his willingness to share his ideas as an instructor, both in the IT world and in the underwater world — Ben is a certified scuba instructor with a passion for diving. Other passions for life include riding his Harley Davidson through his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, coaching his daughter’s softball team, and of course, being a husband to his wife, Kimberly, and a proud father of his children, Madison and Bryce.
Kathleen Dollard, AppVenture Kathleen has been developing business applications for over 20 years, programming in Visual Basic for almost ten years, and working with .NET since the early betas. As an independent consultant, she has had the opportunity to work in a variety of domains, including the finance and justice sectors. Kathleen has worked extensively with application code generation and is the author of Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (from Apress). She has published numerous articles on a range of .NET technologies including XSLT, debugging, ADO.NET, and code generation. Kathleen is also a long time Microsoft MVP, president of the Northern Colorado .NET SIG, and is an active member of the Denver Visual Studio User Group.
Gert Drapers, SQLDEV.net Gert Drapers is a Software Architect in the SQL Server Development group at Microsoft. As a member of the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team, he is involved in providing architecture design guidance and performance tuning for the largest and most challenging SQL Server deployments in the world. Gert brings extensive experience in the areas of application development, database management, data loading, and performance tuning of VLDB environments. Prior to his current position, Gert was working as Software Architect in the .NET Developer Division, responsible for the design and development of the next generation transaction manager and programming model. He started working on SQL Server in 1988 while working for Ashton-Tate. He joined Microsoft in 1991 where he held various development positions within the Developer Relation Group and Microsoft Consulting Services before joining the SQL Server development team in 1996. Gert worked on both SQL Server 7.0 and 2000; first as Software Design Engineer in the SQL Server Storage Engine and later as the Product Unit Manager of the SQL Server Management Tools team and as Architect of SQL Server DTS.
Dino Esposito, IDesign, Inc. An IDesign software architect and prolific author, Dino Esposito writes the Cutting Edge column for MSDN Magazine. Dino is also the author of two popular architecture books for Microsoft Press. They are "Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise" (2008) and "ASP.NET and AJAX: Architecting Web Applications" (2009). Get in touch at http://weblogs.asp.net/despos.
Donald Farmer, Microsoft Donald Farmer has worked in Microsoft Business Intelligence for 9 years, working on several teams and technologies in that time. Mr. Farmer is a popular speaker at international events for both business and technical audiences, with a wide range of interests including data integration, information quality, metadata intelligence, master data management and predictive analytics. He is a Guest Professor at the College of Software and Information Science, Southwestern University at Chongqing, China and is the author of a number of books and articles. Prior to joining Microsoft, Donald worked not only in Business Intelligence but in fields as varied as medieval archaeology and fish-farming.
Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft Steve Guggenheimer, a 14-year veteran of Microsoft Corp., is the General Manager of Microsoft’s Application Platform & Development marketing division. In this role Guggenheimer focuses on Microsoft’s cross-company Application Platform strategy and it’s sales and marketing initiatives, in conjunction with the WW development, sales, evangelism organizations. Also Guggenheimer leads the global Microsoft® SQL Server™, BizTalk® Server and Developer Tools marketing organizations; and manages the operations teams focused on driving effective relationships with Microsoft’s broad customer and industry partner communities.
Before assuming his current role, Guggenheimer lead the Small Business and Operations divisions in Microsoft’s Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partners Group (SMS&P). Specifically he was focused on Microsoft and its industry partners better serve the needs of the growing small-business segment globally. Prior to this, Guggenheimer worked abroad as part of the Microsoft U.K. subsidiary leadership team, helping improve the overall experience Microsoft provides to its customers and industry partners. He also worked directly for Microsoft’s president and chief operating officer on strategic business and process projects.
Eric Hanson, Microsoft Eric Hanson is the Lead Program Manager for Query Processing in the SQL Server Relational Engine team. He is the owner of the data warehouse scalability scenario for the next SQL Server release. He has been involved with database research and product development since 1983 when he entered graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he worked on University INGRES. He was a professor in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering department at the University of Florida from 1992-2001, where he conducted research on active databases. He formed a software company related to his research at the University of Florida, where he worked until 2002, before joining Microsoft’s SQL Server team.
Billy Hollis, Author Billy Hollis is co-author of the first book ever published on Visual Basic. NET, VB.NET Programming on the Public Beta, from Wrox Press, as well as numerous other books and articles on .NET. His most recent book is Fast Track Visual Basic .NET. He writes a monthly column for MSDN Online, and is heavily involved in training, consultation, and software development on the Microsoft .NET platform, focusing on smart-client development and commercial packages. He frequently speaks at industry conferences such as Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference (PDC), TechEd, and Comdex. Billy is also a member of the INETA (International .NET Association of user groups) speaker’s bureau and speaks at user group meetings all over the country.
Alex Keh, Oracle Alex Keh is a principal product manager at Oracle. He focuses on Oracle data access and database integration with .NET and Windows. He''''s spoken previously at many Microsoft and Oracle events, including Microsoft TechEd, Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, VSLive!, and Oracle OpenWorld.
Andrew Kelly, Solid Quality Mentors Andrew J. Kelly is a Mentor and Partner with Solid Quality Mentors™ based out of Myrtle Beach SC. He has over 20 years experience with relational databases and application development on both Unix and Windows platforms. He has been a SQL Server MVP since 2001. In addition to general SQL Server training and mentoring he specializes in Performance, Scalability and Maintainability of large scale SQL Servers.
Don Kiely, Senior Technology Consultant Don Kiely, MCSD, is a senior technology consultant, building custom applications as well as providing business and technology consulting services. His development work involves tools such as SQL Server, Visual Basic, C#, ASP.NET, and Microsoft Office. He writes regularly for several trade journals, including Visual Studio Magazine and Advisor Media, Inc., is a top poster and moderator on the www.asp.net community forums, and trains developers in .NET technologies. When he isn’t living and breathing technology, he is exploring the Alaska wilderness with his dogs Mardy and Izzi, hiking, whitewater kayaking, skiing, and searching for the perfect sun dog. You can reach Don at donkiely@computer.org.
Isaac Kunen, Microsoft Isaac Kunen is a program manager on the SQL Server engine programmability team. Isaac has recently been concentrating on spatial database support, in addition to working on the SQL Sever type system, SQL CLR integration, and database extensibility. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2005, Isaac was a developer at BEA Systems.
Nickolas Landry, Infusion Development Corporation Nickolas Landry is a Principal Architect and Practice Manager in New York for Infusion Development, a Microsoft Gold Partner which offers quality software development services, developer training and consulting services for large corporations and agencies in the North America, the UK and Dubai (www.infusion.com). Known for his dynamic and engaging style, he is a frequent speaker at major software development conferences worldwide, a member of both the INETA and the MSDN Canada Speakers Bureaus, a Microsoft MVP on Device Application Development, and a former Microsoft Regional Director in Montreal. He is the Vice-President of IASA New York (www.iasahome.org), and is a Founding Member of WWISA (www.wwisa.org). His primary goal is to help businesses connect their information, systems, and people together in a seamless integration to achieve complete enterprise agility. Aside from his work in designing business solution architectures using .NET technologies, Nick provides mentoring services in architecture, design and .NET development, authors and teaches .NET classes, performs system audits, and profiles technologies for various enterprise scenarios. With over 17 years of professional experience – starting with Visual Basic 1.0 – and a career almost entirely dedicated to Microsoft technologies, Nick specializes in .NET mobility, Bing Maps, SOA, architecture & design patterns, High-Performance Computing (HPC), game development with XNA, and smart clients. He wrote multiple articles for CODE Magazine and several .NET mobility courses for Microsoft, has been a technical editor for many books, and holds several professional certifications from Microsoft and IBM. Contact and blog: http://home.infusionblogs.com/nlandry.
Il-Sung Lee, Microsoft Il-Sung Lee is a Program Manager for the Storage Engine team in the SQL Server product group at Microsoft and is the PM owner for SQL Server Security. Il-Sung has had ten years of experience in the database industry, primarily as a developer focusing on database communications and database security. He has presented at PASS as well as several DB2 conferences in Europe and North America over the past four years and is a contributor for the DB2 UDB V8.2 on the Windows Environment Redbook. Il-Sung graduated with a M. Eng degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University and subsequently worked seven years for IBM in their Information Management group before joining Microsoft in 2005.
Julie Lerman, The Data Farm Julie Lerman is a Microsoft MVP, .NET mentor and consultant who lives in the hills of Vermont. You can find Julie presenting on data access and other Microsoft .NET topics at user groups and conferences around the world. Julie blogs at thedatafarm.com/blog, is the author of the highly acclaimed "Programming Entity Framework (with a second edition coming soon) and authors the MSDN Magazine "Data Points" column. Follow Julie on twitter at julielerman.
Michele Leroux Bustamante, IDesign, Inc. Michèle Leroux Bustamante is Chief Architect of IDesign Inc., Microsoft Regional Director for San Diego, and a Microsoft MVP for Connected Systems. At IDesign Michele provides training, mentoring and high-end architecture consulting services focusing on scalable and secure architecture design for .NET, web services, interoperability, federated security scenarios, CardSpace, and globalization architecture. Michele participates in Software Design Reviews for products in the Microsoft roadmap, including WCF, CardSpace and other security-focused products. During the Beta 1 phase Michele participated in prototyping elements of the CardSpace technology for the product team. She is a member of the International .NET Speakers Association (INETA), a frequent conference presenter, conference chair for SD West, and is frequently published in several major technology journals. Michele is also on the board of directors for IASA (International Association of Software Architects), and a Program Advisor and instructor for UCSD Extension. Her latest book is Learning WCF (O’Reilly 2007) – see her book blog here: http://thatindigogirl.com. Reach her at mlb@idesign.net, or visit www.idesign.net and her main blog at www.dasblonde.net.
Paul Litwin, Deep Training Paul Litwin is a developer specializing in ASP.NET, C#, SQL Server, SQL Server Reporting Services, and related technologies. Paul is a Programmer Manager with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He is also the owner of Deep Training, a developer owned training company specializing in .NET developer training (www.deeptraining.com). Paul has authored a number of books and training courses on ASP.NET, SQL Server Reporting Services, and Micrsoft Access. Paul is the conference chair of Microsoft ASP.NET Connections, a Microsoft MVP, and a member of the INETA Speakers Bureau. He has spoken at a number of conferences and code camps, including Microsoft ASP.NET Connections, TechEd, and Seattle Code Camp.
Dmitry Lomov, JetBrains Dmitry Lomov is a technical lead for JetBrains ReSharper, an industry leading productivity add-in for Visual Studio. He has been crafting intelligent software development tools at JetBrains for 5 years. Dmitry also teaches graduate courses at St. Petersburg State University.
Juval Lowy, IDesign, Inc. Juval Lowy is a software architect and the principal of IDesign (www.idesign.net), specializing in .NET 3.0 architecture consulting and advanced .NET 3.0 training. Juval is Microsoft’s Regional Director for the Silicon Valley, working with Microsoft on helping the industry adopt .NET 3.5. His latest book is Programming WCF Services 2nd Edition (O’Reilly 2008). Juval participates in the Microsoft internal design reviews for future versions of .NET and related technologies. Juval published numerous articles regarding almost every aspect of .NET development, and is a frequent presenter at development conferences. Microsoft recognized Juval as a Software Legend as one of the world’s top .NET experts and industry leaders.
Kat Meadows Kat Meadows has been working with SQL Server since 1998. Currently, she holds the position as Senior DBA and Manager of the Database Service team for EL Paso County where her primary focus is for strategic planning, database development, and administration for SQL Server. She is also an independent consultant for SQLOnCall. Past positions have allowed her to work in military, government, manufacturing, and dot-com environments. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Managing Information Systems from Colorado Technical University.
Mark Miller, Developer Express Mark Miller is a high-speed coder with strong expertise in plug-in architectures, decoupled design, and great UI. Mark is Chief Architect of the IDE Tools division at Developer Express, and is the visionary force behind CodeRush, Refactor!, and the DXCore. Mark has been writing software for over two decades.
Stacia Misner, Data Inspirations Stacia Misner is a consultant, educator, author, mentor, and principal of Data Inspirations. Her career spans 23 years with a focus on improving business practices through technology. Since 2000, she has been providing consulting and education services for Microsoft’s business intelligence technologies. In addition, she has authored or co-authored six books, all published by Microsoft Press, covering different components of the Microsoft SQL Server database and business intelligence platform. Stacia has presented at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), Microsoft’s TechEd, SQL Server Magazine Connections, and various Microsoft events.
Joanna Omel, Microsoft Joanna Omel is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Storage Engine Group at Microsoft. She is responsible for the File Services component in SQL Server 2008. Prior to joining SQL Server, she worked in the Microsoft Windows group focusing primarily on testing remote file systems.
Paul Randal, SQLskills.com Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server.
Paul worked on the SQL Server team for nine years in development and management roles, writing many of the DBCC commands, and ultimately with responsibility for core Storage Engine for SQL Server 2008. Paul writes extensively on his blog (SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul) and for TechNet Magazine, for which he is also a Contributing Editor.
Paul and Kimberly have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft.
In their spare time they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world.
Vineet Rao, Microsoft Vineet Rao is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Relational Engine group at Microsoft. Vineet has over seven years of experience in the industry with the past three years in this group. During this time, he has worked on various aspects involved in the server-side programmability area especially the integration of .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) in SQL Server and its support in Visual Studio 2005.
Chris Shaw, SQL on Call Chris is an industry-recognized leader in the database field. Chris has also worked with Yellow Pages Inc, Ford Fairlane Motor Credit, Wells Fargo, AT&T Wireless, and Pulte Mortgage. Chris has published a number of articles for different magazines including SQL Server Update, SQL Server Magazine and SQL Standard Magazine. He is a member of Rocky Mountain Microsoft Community Insiders group and is the founder of the Colorado Springs SQL Server Users Group. Chris contributed to the SQL Server 2005 Bible. He is the SSWUG track SQL Connections chair and is a speaker at both the spring and fall conference. He is also a speaker for the SSWUG video conference. Chris is currently writing a weekly column on Database Team Management and has a weekly webcasting show called the "SQL On Call" show.
Kimberly L. Tripp, SQLskills.com Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server.
Kimberly worked on the SQL Server team in the early 1990s as a tester and writer before leaving to found SQLskills and embrace her passion for teaching and consulting. Kimberly has been a staple at worldwide conferences since she first presented at TechEd in 1996, and she blogs at SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly.
Kimberly and Paul have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft.
In their spare time they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world.
William R. Vaughn, Beta V Corporation William (Bill) Vaughn is an industry-recognized author, mentor and subject-matter expert on Visual Studio, SQL Server, Reporting Services and data access interfaces. He’s worked in the computer industry for over thirty years—working with mainframe, minicomputer and personal computer systems as a developer, manager, architect, trainer, marketer, support specialist, writer and publisher. In 2000, after 14 years at Microsoft, Bill stepped away to work on his books, mentoring and independent training seminars. He’s written seven editions of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server and three editions of ADO.NET and ADO Examples and Best Practices for Visual Basic (and C#) Programmers. He and Peter Blackburn also wrote the best-selling and critically acclaimed Hitchhiker’s Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. Bill is a top-rated speaker and frequents conferences all over the world including VSLive, Visual Studio/SQL Connections, DevTeach and VBug. He’s also written a wealth of articles for magazines such as SQL Server Magazine, Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal, .NET Magazine and many others as well as a bi-weekly editorial on developer issues for Processor magazine. Bill spends considerable time answering questions on the data-centric public newsgroups and speaking at user group meetings in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and at his speaking venues all over the world. Bill was added to the INETA speaker’s list this fall. He’s available for consulting, mentoring or custom training. See www.betav.com or www.betav.comblogbillva.
Erik Veerman, Solid Quality Learning Erik Veerman is an Associate Mentor for Solid Quality Learning focusing on 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 has designed dozens of BI solutions across a broad business spectrum—telecommunications, marketing, retail, commercial real estate, finance, supply chain, and information technology. These efforts have included the development of OEM products, broad warehousing initiatives, BI methodology standardization, best practices on Microsoft SQL Server, and lab benchmarking. His experience with high volume multi-terabyte environments and SQL Server 64-bit has enabled clients to scale their Microsoft-based solutions for optimal potential. As an expert in OLAP design, ETL processing, and dimensional modeling in general, Erik is a frequent presenter for his local PASS chapter and speaks at the national PASS and SQL Server Magazine Connections conferences. He led the ETL architecture and design for the first production implementation of Integration Services (SSIS) and is currently driving the ETL standards and best practices for SSIS on Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005 product launch reference initiative, Project REAL.
Dan Wahlin, Wahlin Consulting Dan Wahlin (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for ASP.NET and XML Web Services) is the president of Wahlin Consulting which specializes in .NET and SharePoint consulting and training solutions. Dan founded the XML for ASP.NET Developers Web site (http://www.xmlforasp.net), which focuses on using ASP.NET, XML, AJAX, Silverlight and Web Services in Microsoft’s .NET platform. He’s also on the INETA Speaker’s Bureau, speaks at conferences and user groups around the world and is recognized as a leading authority on .NET technologies. Dan has written several books on .NET including Professional Silverlight 2 Development, Professional ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX, ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks and Tips, and XML for ASP.NET Developers. Dan’s blog is located at http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin.
Stephen Walther, Microsoft Stephen Walther is a Microsoft Senior Program Manager who works with the ASP.NET MVC team to develop content around ASP.NET MVC. He is the author of the all time, biggest, best-selling book on ASP.NET, ASP.NET Unleashed. He is currently writing ASP.NET MVC Unleashed. Read his blog on ASP.NET MVC at http://StephenWalther.com.
Vaughn Washington, Microsoft Vaughn Washington currently leads the development team for native data access in the SQL Server division at Microsoft; Vaughn is responsible for building and maintaining Microsoft’s world class data providers for SQL Server: ODBC and OLE DB. His responsibilities include delivering scalable, performant and secure client components that are consumed by Microsoft internal and external customers through API that adhere to industry standards and expectations while showcasing SQL Server’s unique value proposition.
Richard Waymire, Microsoft Richard Waymire is a Senior Program Manager with the SQL Server Manageability Product Unit. He has been with Microsoft for more than 9 years, the majority of that time having been part of the SQL Server development team. Richard has been using and developing with SQL Server since SQL Server version 4.2. He has written several books on SQL Server and is a contributing editor to SQL Server Magazine.
Brian Welcker, Microsoft Brian Welcker is Group Program Manager for SQL Server Reporting Services, part of the SQL Server product group. His team is focused on delivering the premier managed and ad-hoc enterprise reporting platform as part of SQL Server 2005 as well as delivering developer reporting components for Visual Studio 2005. Previously, Brian was the lead program manager for SQL Server Meta Data Services as well as a technical evangelist in Microsoft''''s developer relations group. He joined Microsoft nine years ago after working for a company in his home town of Raleigh, North Carolina building software for hospitals and doctor''''s offices. Brian resides in Seattle, Washington with his wife and 2 children.
Dandy Weyn, Dandyman VOF Dandy Weyn started working with databases by the age of 16. In his professional career he worked with multiple database platforms as Oracle, DB2 and Sybase before he started working in a SQL Server environment. After building his experience as database administrator and developer on several enterprise projects in Belgium, he started his own company, focusing on IT training and consultancy. Over the past year Dandy spent most of his time in the USA, where he delivered and trained on SQL Server all over the country and ran multiple events for the Microsoft Partner Readiness team. He’s been at major conferences as Microsoft Tech Ed and Worldwide Partner Conference where he presented instructor-led hands-on labs or shared his knowledge at the ATE or HOL area. Besides being an author on the SQL Server 2005 Exam Study Guide for Sybex, he also published several articles and recorded a SQL Server 2005 computer-based learning training DVD. Dandy is current with his credentials on SQL Server 2005 and also holds MCSE/MCDST/MCDBA and MCSA certifications
Sunil Agarwal is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Storage Engine Group at Microsoft. He is responsible for concurrency, indexes, tempdb, LOBS, supportability, and bulk import/export. Prior to joining Microsoft, Sunil worked at DEC, Sybase, BMC Software and DigitalThink, focusing primarily on core database engine technologies and related applications.
Gopal Ashok is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Replication team. He has been with Microsoft since 1999 and has been with the support organization working as an Escalation Engineer before moving to the SQL product team in January of 2006. Gopal has been working with replication technologies since SQL Server 7.0 and over the last year and half has been involved in delivering key features for SQL Server 2008, one of which is Change Data Capture.
Fernando joined Microsoft as a Program Manager two years ago and owns the Full-Text Search (FTS) component of SQL Server. Besides the large amount of interesting work to do in Full-Text Search in SQL Server, he focuses some of his time on the whole Search scenario at Microsoft, trying to have regular contact with other Microsoft Search solutions like Windows Desktop Search, MOSS, etc… If you want to Search and find what you are looking for in SQL Server, Fernando is the guy to talk to. You can send e-mail to Fernando at 
Todd began working with WSS and SPS in the beta stages of the products, in 2003. He has architected and implemented intranets, extranets, wireless deployments, and several custom applications with the WSS and SPS platforms. Todd created the first SharePoint advanced development training curriculum in the training industry for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Two versions in a row, Todd broke ground in the training industry by being the first to offer advanced developr training for SharePoint! Todd speaks at many SharePoint conferences including the Microsoft SharePoint Conference, Microsoft TechEd, and SharePoint Connections. He has also spoken at Microsoft events at the Microsoft offices in both Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has also presented several sessions at the Rocky Mountain SharePoint User’s Group.
Boris Baryshnikov is a program manager in the SQL Server Relational Engine group. He is currently responsible for the Resource Governor project which spans both Storage and Relational Engines of SQL Server. During his time in SQL Server group Boris worked on various feature areas including SQL Server Failover Clustering, SQL OS Memory Management, and performance troubleshooting.
Itzik Ben-Gan is a Mentor and Founder of Solid Quality Learning. 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 Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (MSPress), Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming (MSPress), and a co-author of Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000 (APress). He has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and whitepapers for MSDN.
Julian M Bucknall is Chief Technology Officer for Developer Express. Julian is an experienced professional architect and designer, with design, analysis, and development expertise in a variety of object-oriented languages. Julian has wide experience in implementing commercial software and frameworks--most notably in the component, library, and tools markets--and has mentored and promoted agile methodologies for several years.
Miguel is an architect with IDesign and provides architectural and development services to clients worldwide. He is a Microsoft MVP, INETA speaker, ASP Insider, and has been in the software industry for over 20 years. With a Microsoft background that goes all the way back to Visual Basic 1.0 (and QuickBasic in fact), Miguel jumped on .NET as soon as the first public Beta was released and has provided .NET solutions for clients in a variety of industries. He considers himself to be a .NET Developer and Architect and has equal love for both Visual Basic and C#, with no tolerance for language bigotry. He’s spoken at numerous user groups around the country as well as developer conferences in the US and abroad. 
Ben Curry (CISSP, MVP, MCP, MCT) is an author and enterprise network architect specializing in knowledge management and collaboration technologies. Ben is a Managing Partner at Summit 7 Systems, a company focused on the next generation of Microsoft products. Prior to launching Summit 7 Systems, Ben was an owner/partner at Mindsharp, the world leader in technical education for SharePoint. Ben’s philosophy is that the best solutions are inspired by the best ideas, and he encourages his team to generate and share ideas on a continuous basis. His philosophy is also exemplified in his numerous published books, and in his willingness to share his ideas as an instructor, both in the IT world and in the underwater world — Ben is a certified scuba instructor with a passion for diving. Other passions for life include riding his Harley Davidson through his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, coaching his daughter’s softball team, and of course, being a husband to his wife, Kimberly, and a proud father of his children, Madison and Bryce.
Kathleen has been developing business applications for over 20 years, programming in Visual Basic for almost ten years, and working with .NET since the early betas. As an independent consultant, she has had the opportunity to work in a variety of domains, including the finance and justice sectors. Kathleen has worked extensively with application code generation and is the author of Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (from Apress). She has published numerous articles on a range of .NET technologies including XSLT, debugging, ADO.NET, and code generation. Kathleen is also a long time Microsoft MVP, president of the Northern Colorado .NET SIG, and is an active member of the Denver Visual Studio User Group.
Gert Drapers is a Software Architect in the SQL Server Development group at Microsoft. As a member of the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team, he is involved in providing architecture design guidance and performance tuning for the largest and most challenging SQL Server deployments in the world. Gert brings extensive experience in the areas of application development, database management, data loading, and performance tuning of VLDB environments. Prior to his current position, Gert was working as Software Architect in the .NET Developer Division, responsible for the design and development of the next generation transaction manager and programming model. He started working on SQL Server in 1988 while working for Ashton-Tate. He joined Microsoft in 1991 where he held various development positions within the Developer Relation Group and Microsoft Consulting Services before joining the SQL Server development team in 1996. Gert worked on both SQL Server 7.0 and 2000; first as Software Design Engineer in the SQL Server Storage Engine and later as the Product Unit Manager of the SQL Server Management Tools team and as Architect of SQL Server DTS.
An IDesign software architect and prolific author, Dino Esposito writes the Cutting Edge column for MSDN Magazine. Dino is also the author of two popular architecture books for Microsoft Press. They are "Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise" (2008) and "ASP.NET and AJAX: Architecting Web Applications" (2009). Get in touch at 
Donald Farmer has worked in Microsoft Business Intelligence for 9 years, working on several teams and technologies in that time. Mr. Farmer is a popular speaker at international events for both business and technical audiences, with a wide range of interests including data integration, information quality, metadata intelligence, master data management and predictive analytics. He is a Guest Professor at the College of Software and Information Science, Southwestern University at Chongqing, China and is the author of a number of books and articles. Prior to joining Microsoft, Donald worked not only in Business Intelligence but in fields as varied as medieval archaeology and fish-farming.
Steve Guggenheimer, a 14-year veteran of Microsoft Corp., is the General Manager of Microsoft’s Application Platform & Development marketing division. In this role Guggenheimer focuses on Microsoft’s cross-company Application Platform strategy and it’s sales and marketing initiatives, in conjunction with the WW development, sales, evangelism organizations. Also Guggenheimer leads the global Microsoft® SQL Server™, BizTalk® Server and Developer Tools marketing organizations; and manages the operations teams focused on driving effective relationships with Microsoft’s broad customer and industry partner communities. 
Eric Hanson is the Lead Program Manager for Query Processing in the SQL Server Relational Engine team. He is the owner of the data warehouse scalability scenario for the next SQL Server release. He has been involved with database research and product development since 1983 when he entered graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he worked on University INGRES. He was a professor in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering department at the University of Florida from 1992-2001, where he conducted research on active databases. He formed a software company related to his research at the University of Florida, where he worked until 2002, before joining Microsoft’s SQL Server team.
Billy Hollis is co-author of the first book ever published on Visual Basic. NET, VB.NET Programming on the Public Beta, from Wrox Press, as well as numerous other books and articles on .NET. His most recent book is Fast Track Visual Basic .NET. He writes a monthly column for MSDN Online, and is heavily involved in training, consultation, and software development on the Microsoft .NET platform, focusing on smart-client development and commercial packages. He frequently speaks at industry conferences such as Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference (PDC), TechEd, and Comdex. Billy is also a member of the INETA (International .NET Association of user groups) speaker’s bureau and speaks at user group meetings all over the country.
Alex Keh is a principal product manager at Oracle. He focuses on Oracle data access and database integration with .NET and Windows. He''''s spoken previously at many Microsoft and Oracle events, including Microsoft TechEd, Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, VSLive!, and Oracle OpenWorld.
Andrew J. Kelly is a Mentor and Partner with Solid Quality Mentors™ based out of Myrtle Beach SC. He has over 20 years experience with relational databases and application development on both Unix and Windows platforms. He has been a SQL Server MVP since 2001. In addition to general SQL Server training and mentoring he specializes in Performance, Scalability and Maintainability of large scale SQL Servers.
Don Kiely, MCSD, is a senior technology consultant, building custom applications as well as providing business and technology consulting services. His development work involves tools such as SQL Server, Visual Basic, C#, ASP.NET, and Microsoft Office. He writes regularly for several trade journals, including Visual Studio Magazine and Advisor Media, Inc., is a top poster and moderator on the www.asp.net community forums, and trains developers in .NET technologies. When he isn’t living and breathing technology, he is exploring the Alaska wilderness with his dogs Mardy and Izzi, hiking, whitewater kayaking, skiing, and searching for the perfect sun dog. You can reach Don at donkiely@computer.org.
Isaac Kunen is a program manager on the SQL Server engine programmability team. Isaac has recently been concentrating on spatial database support, in addition to working on the SQL Sever type system, SQL CLR integration, and database extensibility. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2005, Isaac was a developer at BEA Systems.
Nickolas Landry is a Principal Architect and Practice Manager in New York for Infusion Development, a Microsoft Gold Partner which offers quality software development services, developer training and consulting services for large corporations and agencies in the North America, the UK and Dubai (
Il-Sung Lee is a Program Manager for the Storage Engine team in the SQL Server product group at Microsoft and is the PM owner for SQL Server Security. Il-Sung has had ten years of experience in the database industry, primarily as a developer focusing on database communications and database security. He has presented at PASS as well as several DB2 conferences in Europe and North America over the past four years and is a contributor for the DB2 UDB V8.2 on the Windows Environment Redbook. Il-Sung graduated with a M. Eng degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University and subsequently worked seven years for IBM in their Information Management group before joining Microsoft in 2005.
Julie Lerman is a Microsoft MVP, .NET mentor and consultant who lives in the hills of Vermont. You can find Julie presenting on data access and other Microsoft .NET topics at user groups and conferences around the world. Julie blogs at 
Michèle Leroux Bustamante is Chief Architect of IDesign Inc., Microsoft Regional Director for San Diego, and a Microsoft MVP for Connected Systems. At IDesign Michele provides training, mentoring and high-end architecture consulting services focusing on scalable and secure architecture design for .NET, web services, interoperability, federated security scenarios, CardSpace, and globalization architecture. Michele participates in Software Design Reviews for products in the Microsoft roadmap, including WCF, CardSpace and other security-focused products. During the Beta 1 phase Michele participated in prototyping elements of the CardSpace technology for the product team. She is a member of the International .NET Speakers Association (INETA), a frequent conference presenter, conference chair for SD West, and is frequently published in several major technology journals. Michele is also on the board of directors for IASA (International Association of Software Architects), and a Program Advisor and instructor for UCSD Extension. Her latest book is Learning WCF (O’Reilly 2007) – see her book blog here: 
Paul Litwin is a developer specializing in ASP.NET, C#, SQL Server, SQL Server Reporting Services, and related technologies. Paul is a Programmer Manager with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He is also the owner of Deep Training, a developer owned training company specializing in .NET developer training (
Dmitry Lomov is a technical lead for JetBrains ReSharper, an industry leading productivity add-in for Visual Studio. He has been crafting intelligent software development tools at JetBrains for 5 years. Dmitry also teaches graduate courses at St. Petersburg State University.
Juval Lowy is a software architect and the principal of IDesign (
Kat Meadows has been working with SQL Server since 1998. Currently, she holds the position as Senior DBA and Manager of the Database Service team for EL Paso County where her primary focus is for strategic planning, database development, and administration for SQL Server. She is also an independent consultant for SQLOnCall. Past positions have allowed her to work in military, government, manufacturing, and dot-com environments. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Managing Information Systems from Colorado Technical University.
Mark Miller is a high-speed coder with strong expertise in plug-in architectures, decoupled design, and great UI. Mark is Chief Architect of the IDE Tools division at Developer Express, and is the visionary force behind CodeRush, Refactor!, and the DXCore. Mark has been writing software for over two decades.
Stacia Misner is a consultant, educator, author, mentor, and principal of Data Inspirations. Her career spans 23 years with a focus on improving business practices through technology. Since 2000, she has been providing consulting and education services for Microsoft’s business intelligence technologies. In addition, she has authored or co-authored six books, all published by Microsoft Press, covering different components of the Microsoft SQL Server database and business intelligence platform. Stacia has presented at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), Microsoft’s TechEd, SQL Server Magazine Connections, and various Microsoft events.
Joanna Omel is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Storage Engine Group at Microsoft. She is responsible for the File Services component in SQL Server 2008. Prior to joining SQL Server, she worked in the Microsoft Windows group focusing primarily on testing remote file systems.
Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. 
Vineet Rao is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Relational Engine group at Microsoft. Vineet has over seven years of experience in the industry with the past three years in this group. During this time, he has worked on various aspects involved in the server-side programmability area especially the integration of .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) in SQL Server and its support in Visual Studio 2005.
Chris is an industry-recognized leader in the database field. Chris has also worked with Yellow Pages Inc, Ford Fairlane Motor Credit, Wells Fargo, AT&T Wireless, and Pulte Mortgage. Chris has published a number of articles for different magazines including SQL Server Update, SQL Server Magazine and SQL Standard Magazine. He is a member of Rocky Mountain Microsoft Community Insiders group and is the founder of the Colorado Springs SQL Server Users Group. Chris contributed to the SQL Server 2005 Bible. He is the SSWUG track SQL Connections chair and is a speaker at both the spring and fall conference. He is also a speaker for the SSWUG video conference. Chris is currently writing a weekly column on Database Team Management and has a weekly webcasting show called the "SQL On Call" show.
Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. 
William (Bill) Vaughn is an industry-recognized author, mentor and subject-matter expert on Visual Studio, SQL Server, Reporting Services and data access interfaces. He’s worked in the computer industry for over thirty years—working with mainframe, minicomputer and personal computer systems as a developer, manager, architect, trainer, marketer, support specialist, writer and publisher. In 2000, after 14 years at Microsoft, Bill stepped away to work on his books, mentoring and independent training seminars. He’s written seven editions of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server and three editions of ADO.NET and ADO Examples and Best Practices for Visual Basic (and C#) Programmers. He and Peter Blackburn also wrote the best-selling and critically acclaimed Hitchhiker’s Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. Bill is a top-rated speaker and frequents conferences all over the world including VSLive, Visual Studio/SQL Connections, DevTeach and VBug. He’s also written a wealth of articles for magazines such as SQL Server Magazine, Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal, .NET Magazine and many others as well as a bi-weekly editorial on developer issues for Processor magazine. Bill spends considerable time answering questions on the data-centric public newsgroups and speaking at user group meetings in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and at his speaking venues all over the world. Bill was added to the INETA speaker’s list this fall. He’s available for consulting, mentoring or custom training. See 
Erik Veerman is an Associate Mentor for Solid Quality Learning focusing on 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 has designed dozens of BI solutions across a broad business spectrum—telecommunications, marketing, retail, commercial real estate, finance, supply chain, and information technology. These efforts have included the development of OEM products, broad warehousing initiatives, BI methodology standardization, best practices on Microsoft SQL Server, and lab benchmarking. His experience with high volume multi-terabyte environments and SQL Server 64-bit has enabled clients to scale their Microsoft-based solutions for optimal potential. As an expert in OLAP design, ETL processing, and dimensional modeling in general, Erik is a frequent presenter for his local PASS chapter and speaks at the national PASS and SQL Server Magazine Connections conferences. He led the ETL architecture and design for the first production implementation of Integration Services (SSIS) and is currently driving the ETL standards and best practices for SSIS on Microsoft’s SQL Server 2005 product launch reference initiative, Project REAL.
Dan Wahlin (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for ASP.NET and XML Web Services) is the president of Wahlin Consulting which specializes in .NET and SharePoint consulting and training solutions. Dan founded the XML for ASP.NET Developers Web site (
Stephen Walther is a Microsoft Senior Program Manager who works with the ASP.NET MVC team to develop content around ASP.NET MVC. He is the author of the all time, biggest, best-selling book on ASP.NET, ASP.NET Unleashed. He is currently writing ASP.NET MVC Unleashed. Read his blog on ASP.NET MVC at 
Vaughn Washington currently leads the development team for native data access in the SQL Server division at Microsoft; Vaughn is responsible for building and maintaining Microsoft’s world class data providers for SQL Server: ODBC and OLE DB. His responsibilities include delivering scalable, performant and secure client components that are consumed by Microsoft internal and external customers through API that adhere to industry standards and expectations while showcasing SQL Server’s unique value proposition.
Richard Waymire is a Senior Program Manager with the SQL Server Manageability Product Unit. He has been with Microsoft for more than 9 years, the majority of that time having been part of the SQL Server development team. Richard has been using and developing with SQL Server since SQL Server version 4.2. He has written several books on SQL Server and is a contributing editor to SQL Server Magazine.
Brian Welcker is Group Program Manager for SQL Server Reporting Services, part of the SQL Server product group. His team is focused on delivering the premier managed and ad-hoc enterprise reporting platform as part of SQL Server 2005 as well as delivering developer reporting components for Visual Studio 2005. Previously, Brian was the lead program manager for SQL Server Meta Data Services as well as a technical evangelist in Microsoft''''s developer relations group. He joined Microsoft nine years ago after working for a company in his home town of Raleigh, North Carolina building software for hospitals and doctor''''s offices. Brian resides in Seattle, Washington with his wife and 2 children.
Dandy Weyn started working with databases by the age of 16. In his professional career he worked with multiple database platforms as Oracle, DB2 and Sybase before he started working in a SQL Server environment. After building his experience as database administrator and developer on several enterprise projects in Belgium, he started his own company, focusing on IT training and consultancy. Over the past year Dandy spent most of his time in the USA, where he delivered and trained on SQL Server all over the country and ran multiple events for the Microsoft Partner Readiness team. He’s been at major conferences as Microsoft Tech Ed and Worldwide Partner Conference where he presented instructor-led hands-on labs or shared his knowledge at the ATE or HOL area. Besides being an author on the SQL Server 2005 Exam Study Guide for Sybex, he also published several articles and recorded a SQL Server 2005 computer-based learning training DVD. Dandy is current with his credentials on SQL Server 2005 and also holds MCSE/MCDST/MCDBA and MCSA certifications