Speakers 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. 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. Hilary Cotter Hilary Cotter is a SQL Server MVP who has been involved in IT for over 20 years. He is a High Availability and SQL FTS specialist and recently completed a book on SQL Server replication. Brian Dawson, Microsoft Brian Dawson works on the ADO.NET Entity Framework team as a Program Manager, and has been with Microsoft for a short time. Brian’s has 10+ years creating software for consumers, SMB, and enterprise-level organizations. He has had many different roles from developing and managing software and support teams. He focuses on delivering software which customer’s find useful. Brian lives in Washington with his wife and three kids where he one day hopes to own the next triple crown winning horse. 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. Bill English, Mindsharp An author and educator specializing in SharePoint products and technologies, Bill English (MCSE, MCSA, MVP) is an industry leader on this exciting product from Microsoft. Bill is the principle author on the SharePoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit published by Microsoft Press and regularly conducts private corporate training events for companies of all sizes. In addition, Bill has either authored or co-authored a total of nine books. Bill is the co-owner of Mindsharp (www.mindsharp.com), a company that offers top-notch educational opportunities on the SharePoint platform. Bill has presented at Comdex, The Microsoft Exchange Conference, TechMentor, TechEd and Networld Interop. Bill lives in Minnesota with his wife and two children. 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. Torsten Grabs, Microsoft Torsten works as a Program Manager for the Microsoft SQL Server Query Processor. His responsibilities currently cover a broad range of areas in SQL Server from relational data warehousing to reliability of query processing to features such as cache sync (aka query notifications). Torsten is with Microsoft SQL Server since early 2004 serving in different roles in development and program management. Torsten holds a PhD in database systems from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. Rick Heiges, Scalability Experts Rick Heiges is a Database Consultant with Scalability Experts working with customers on solutions within the SQL Server environment and educating users on SQL Server 2005 by speaking at user groups, conferences, and road shows across the USA and Europe. He holds an MBA and a M.S. in MIS as well as a B.S. in Computer Science. In addition, he also has attained MCP, MCSE, and MCDBA certifications and has participated in an advisory role for the new SQL Server 2005 certifications. His career has dealt with a wide array of job responsibilities including professor, developer, trainer, database administrator, and project manager/leader. Rick has been involved with PASS since the spring of 2001 and started up an Official PASS SQL Server user group in North Carolina as well as authoring several articles on Database Mirroring for the PASS technical journal. Rick has served on the PASS Board of Directors since January 2003. You can read his blog at www.sqljunkies.com and contact him at rheiges@scalabilityexperts.com. 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. Richard Hundhausen, Accentient Richard Hundhausen is the president of Accentient, a company that specializes in Application Lifecycle Management using Visual Studio. He has over 25 years of software and database development experience and 19 years of training and presentation experience. Richard is a Microsoft Regional Director, Visual Studio ALM MVP, and author of Microsoft’s "Professional Scrum Developer" course. 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. 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. 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. Rushabh Mehta, Solid Quality Learning Rushabh is a SQL Server MVP and a Solid Quality Learning Mentor focused on training, mentoring, and architecting business intelligence solutions on Microsoft’s SQL Server platform. His specialization includes dimensional modeling, architecting BI solutions, and implementing large volume ETL solutions using SQL Server Integration Services. Through his experiences, Rushabh has created multiple best-practices for ETL processes, as well authored a white paper on "Data Transformation Services - Operational Readiness Best Practice". Rushabh also serves on the board of The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) as the Director of Global Community Development and is a frequent speaker at conferences and user groups. Paul Mestemaker, Microsoft Paul Mestemaker is a Program Manager on the SQL Server Manageability team. His team owns just about every SQL Server tool: Management Studio, Surface Area Configuration, Configuration Manager, SQLCMD, Profiler, Database Engine Tuning Advisor, SMO, Best Practices Analyzer, etc. For the past nine months, Paul has been hard at work on SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 and the new SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer. He has been a speaker at TechEd, PASS, and other Microsoft conferences. You can ask him questions on the SQL Server Tools General forum or check out his blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlrem/. 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. Ted Pattison, Critical Path Training Ted Pattison is an author, instructor and co-founder of Critical Path Training (www.CriticalPathTraining.com), a company dedicated to education on SharePoint technologies. For the last five years Ted has worked with Microsoft’s Developer Platform Evangelism group researching and authoring SharePoint training material for early adopters. Ted started working with SharePoint 2010 in August of 2008 and since that time has led a series of 5-day training classes in which he has already taught hundreds of professional developers how to get started building custom business solutions using the SharePoint 2010 platform. 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. Remus Rusanu, Microsoft Remus is a developer with the SQL Server team and he spent the last six years working to get Service Broker out to customers. He provides an active presence on the SSB discussion forums and newsgroups, interacting with customers and experimenting with this cool new feature of SQL Server 2005 and helps MVPs get a good understanding of it. Remus keeps a blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/remusrusanu/ that focuses on Service Broker and how to use it. 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. Sara Tahir, Microsoft Sara Tahir is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Relational Engine team. Sara is responsible for a number of programmability features in SQL Server, including procedural Transact-SQL, sessions, transactions, error reporting, exception handling, and the Extended Stored Procedure API. Sara joined Microsoft in 2004 after obtaining a Master of Science degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. Prior to that, she was a developer buildingWeb applications and in-house enterprise-level software. Erick Thompson, Microsoft Erick Thompson is a Program Manager at Microsoft, where he works on a variety of data related technologies. His current work includes DataSet, LINQ to Entities and LINQ to DataSet. Originally from rural Alberta, he naturally worked  as a developer at a US-Asian policy research institution prior to joining Microsoft. He has written articles on various technologies including SQL Server, C# and Microsoft Access. When not bathing in the glow of LCD displays, he can be found playing pinball, hiking and fishing. Usually not at the same time. 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. 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. 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

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