Conference Chair

Keith Pleas, Guided Design
Keith is one of the founders of Guided Design and has worked for more than two years on the team developing the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET. Keith is an internationally known writer and speaker and is the Editorial Chair for VBITS. He is also a contributing editor to Visual Studio Magazine and has developed Microsoft Professional Certification Exams. Keith also sits on the INETA board and is the liaison for the INETA Speakers Bureau. You can contact him at .

Andrew Brust, Progressive Systems Consulting
Andrew Brust is President of Progressive Systems Consulting, Inc., a Manhattan-based company specializing in the development of, and developer training in, custom applications using .NET, SQL Server, and other Microsoft technologies. Andrew is Microsoft's Regional Director for New York and New Jersey, a member of the INETA Speaker's Bureau, a contributing editor to Visual Studio Magazine and a regular, highly rated speaker at VSLive! and other conferences throughout the U.S. and internationally. He has over 15 years of experience programming and consulting in the Financial, Public, Small Business, and Not-For-Profit sectors. Andrew is a Vice-Chairman of the New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA) Board. Reach him by e-mail at , or visit Progressive's Web site at www.progsys.com.

Adam Gallant, Microsoft Consulting Services
Since 1993, Adam Gallant, in his role as a Senior Consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services has focused on managing technical strategy aimed at customers and partners. He assists customers in designing, developing and delivering solutions based around the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server platform, as well as strategic planning around corporate and partner technology directions. Adam has helped numerous clients across Canada with project and program management, business re-engineering and development, software development as well as architectural and technical consulting. He is an expert in the development of knowledge management and commerce capable applications, n-tier application architectures and the design and implementation of back-end business services, including Enterprise Application Integration.

Ken Getz, MCW Technologies
Ken Getz is a senior consultant with MCW Technologies and splits his time between programming, writing, and training. Ken has written many technical books, including ASP.NET Developer's Jumpstart with Paul D. Sheriff, and is co-author of several best selling books, including the Access 2002 Developer's Handbooks and VBA Developer's Handbook. He co-wrote and recorded for video training several courses for Application Developer's Training Company (AppDev), including ADO.NET, VB .NET, ASP.NET, Access 2000 and 97, and VB6 seminars. You can reach Ken at , www.mcwtech.com, or at www.developershandbook.com.

Kate Gregory, Gregory Consulting Limited

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!, part 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 COM/+ programming in C++. You can reach him at www.RichardHaleShawGroup.com.

Billy Hollis, DotNetMasters
Billy Hollis is an author and software developer from Nashville, Tennessee. Billy is co-author of the first book ever published on Visual Basic .NET, VB .NET Programming on the Public Beta. He has written many articles, and is a frequent speaker at conferences. He is the Regional Director of Developer Relations in Nashville for Microsoft, and runs a consulting company focusing on Microsoft .NET.

Chris Kinsman, Vergent Software
Chris Kinsman is one of the founders of Guided Design and is formerly the VP of Technology for a family of Web sites that provide information for developers. Chris teaches course on ASP.NET in both VB .NET and C# and has extensive experience with ASP, Web Farms, Clustering, Data Access, and Scalability. He just finished writing Visual Basic .NET Developer?s Guide to ASP.NET, ADO .NET and XML and C# Developer?s Guide to ASP.NET, ADO .NET and XML. Chris has spoken at a variety of conference including VSLive! and Microsoft TechEd on topics including ASP.NET Security, ASP.NET State Management, Web Service Security, ASP to ASP.NET Migration, Building Server Controls. However, most of his time is spent doing consulting with Vergent Software. Contact him at .

Lars Laakes, Microsoft
Lars Laakes, Architect Specialist, Financial Services, starting in 1991, Lars Laakes was the technical product manager in the patterns & practices group in Microsoft Redmond, WA and responsible for various deliverables such as the Smart Client Blocks and Enterprise Patterns. He worked closely with customers and various product groups to ensure the p&p deliverables truly communicated the best practices for solving each technical challenge. Prior to moving to Redmond, for 8 years Lars Laakes was a partner and CTO of a leading training, mentoring, and consulting company based out of Toronto and New York. He worked closely with Fortune 100 companies assisting them in designing, developing, and delivering solutions around the Microsoft platform, as well as strategic planning around corporate technology directions.?

Dwayne Lamb, Visual Byte Inc.
Dwayne Lamb is a 15-year veteran of the computer industry and an experienced technology instructor, writer, presenter and developer. Dwayne is the President and a Principal Consultant for Visual Byte Inc., a Toronto-based company focusing on custom mobility solutions and consumer mobile applications. Through his work at Visual Byte, and his active involvement in the developer and user communities, he has become a leader and industry specialist in the area of mobile application development and design and has been recognized by Microsoft as a Mobile Device MVP. Dwayne has authored several articles on mobility topics that have been published on a variety of web sites and hosts a number of developer-focused sites of his own. You can reach him by email at or visit the Visual Byte web site at www.visualbyte.com. You can also visit www.vbdogs.net or www.mobidogs.com to find helpful developer information.

Rockford Lhotka, Magenic Technologies
Rockford Lhotka is the author of Expert One-on-One Visual Basic .NET Business Objects 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.

John Papa, Lancelot Web Solutions
Johnny Papa is the VP of IT at MJM Investigations, a leading private investigation firm in Raleigh, NC. Johnny can regularly be found speaking at high-tech events such as VSLive! He has also published several technical books, including Professional ADO RDS 2.5 with ASP 3.0, on how to implement leading-edge technologies. You can reach him at .

Brian Randell, MCW Technologies
Brian Randell teaches Microsoft .NET curriculum using Visual Basic .NET and C# for DevelopMentor. When not teaching, Brian works as a Senior Consultant with MCW Technologies, a Microsoft Certified Partner, specializing in custom application development with Microsoft .NET, SQL Server, and the Microsoft Office family of products. Contact him at .

Marcie Robillard, Datagridgirl.com

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