Speaker Biographies - To contact a speaker, click on the speaker's name.
John Alden is a principal of Alden Anderson, Inc. John has extensive programming, consulting, and training experience in both database computing and artificial intelligence. He is author of an expert-system development tool written entirely in FoxPro. John is a trainer for Application Developers Training Company.
David T. Anderson is a principal of Alden Anderson, Inc., a Microsoft database consulting group. He has over 12 years computing experience and has been involved the Xbase community since 1986. David is a trainer for Application Developers Training Company, and spoke at the 1995 Microsoft FoxPro Developers Conference and Microsoft Tech*Ed 95.
James Bach has been a QA manager at Apple Computer and Borland International. He's a frequent speaker and writer on the subject of practical software quality assurance techniques. James is currently chief scientist at Software Testing Laboratories of Seattle, a firm that does testing and training for Microsoft.
Alison Balter is a highly experienced independent consultant, specializing in Windows database applications. During her 12 years in the computer industry, she's become a nationally recognized speaker and expert trainer for Application Developers Training Company. Alison is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer. Her technical articles are published frequently in Advisor publications and she has been featured in over 40 video training tapes.
F. Scott Barker is a former member of the Microsoft Access and FoxPro teams. Besides contracting with Microsoft, Scott is now doing contract development and training in Access. He's a contributing editor for Access Advisor magazine, and has written for Databased Advisor magazine. He is a frequent speaker at Access Conferences both national and international, including Microsoft's Tech*Ed. His company, Applications Plus, specializes in Microsoft Access.
Michael R. Blaha is a principal at OMT Associates, Inc., a training and consulting firm. He formerly was a computer scientist at General Electric R&D in Schenectady, New York. Dr. Blaha is an expert in the areas of object-oriented concepts and methodologies, architecture and design of database applications, system integration, and database reverse engineering. He has worked on multiple large object-oriented software development projects. He has lectured on the OMT methodology in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Paul Blattner, who founded Quality Software Engineering in 1985, is a practicing software engineer with 27 years experience, and a consultant specializing in helping software groups make a successful transition to object technology. Paul's course, "C++: Programming, Paradigms, and Techniques," has been endorsed by the Object Management Group. Paul's projects have included major systems in digital signal processing, medical instrumentation, database applications, electronic mail and computer conferencing systems.
With over 20 years as a consultant, Alex Bleier's experience includes systems design, development, and maintenance at all levels from programmer/analyst through project manager. In the past few years, Mr. Bleier has been involved in the management of maintenance and century date change outsourcing projects. Some of the outsourcing projects were from South American countries to the US, and some from the US to India. Mastech Systems Corp. is heavily involved in off-shore development activities on various hardware/software platforms. These development projects are tied to Mastech US Offices via a Satellite Link and to client offices via T1 connectivity.
Robert C. Bolt is president and a founder of DBSS, Inc., a systems integration firm specializing in SQL database server technology. He has many years of experience in the planning and implementation of client/server solutions. He is a published writer, a frequent speaker, and a recognized authority on client/server technology.
Mr. Bolt is author of a monthly column in DBMS Magazine featuring case studies of corporate client/server implementations. He is also the author of many other articles in various computer industry journals. He has been a speaker and panel participant at PC Expo, the Federal Computer Conference, the Oracle Developers' Conference, the Paradox User Group Annual Meeting, LANDEX, the Gupta Developer's Conference, and other major industry events. Mr. Bolt has also taught the popular "Client/Server Boot Camp"tm course, developed by DBSS, throughout the US, Canada and Europe. Prior to founding DBSS, Mr. Bolt held several positions with Oracle Corporation and Intel Corporation.
Savannah Brentnall is an independent consultant specializing in object orientation and Lotus Notes, and is a founding partner of the Visual Training Group, which specializes in object technology training. The Visual Training Group is working with Flash Creative Management to provide object orientation training to FoxPro developers.
Savannah is currently a consultant to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and is the Editor of Pinnacle Publishing's VO Developer newsletter. Her articles have appeared in VO Developer, Reference Clipper, and Data Based Advisor, and she has spoken at conferences and user groups around the world. Savannah was previously CA's Clipper Product Champion and Nantucket's Technical Marketing Manager, and has programmed in FoxPro, Clipper and dBASE since 1985. Savannah can be reached by phone at (818) 841-7307, or on CompuServe at 71024,3374.
Savannah is currently working on The Visual Guide to Visual FoxPro with Ellen Sander and John Gunn, for Ventana Publishing.
Bruce Brown is an award-winning journalist, author and TV scriptwriter. He has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic Monthly, Audubon, Field & Stream, Kiplinger's and Byte. He is presently the editor and publisher of BugNet, "the journal of computer bugs, glitches, incompatibilities... and their fixes."
Brian Butler is president of Client/Server Solutions, Inc. a St. Louis based consulting firm specializing in application development, and database benchmarking. In addition to those duties, he is a contributing editor for PC Magazine covering client/server computing. He is mainly known for his round-up of SQL Database vendors for the annual PC Magazine's SQL shoot-out -- where he architects the SQL Benchmarks, and co-authors the database reviews. Prior to working at PC Magazine he was the technical editor for DBMS Magazine. Brian has been a featured speaker at Comdex, Database World, DB Expo, and Microsoft Tech*Ed.
Joe Celko is an Atlanta-based senior consultant with OSoft Development Corporation, specializing in SQL, data analysis and data warehouses. He has been a member of the ANSI X3H2 Database Standards Committee since 1987. He has had eight regular monthly or biweekly columns in the past ten years in the computer trade and academic press. His current columns are: "SQL Explorer" in DBMS (M&T Publishing) and "Celko on Software" in COMPUTING (VNB Publications, UK). He is the author of two books on SQL, both of which came out in 1995; JOE CELKO'S SQL FOR SMARTIES (Morgan-Kaufmann) and INSTANT SQL (Wrox)
More recently, he also wrote: "Celko on SQL" in Database Programming & Design (Miller-Freeman); "SQL Puzzle" in Boxes & Arrows (Frank Sweet Publishing); "DBMS/Report" in Systems Integration (Cahner-Ziff); "Data Desk" in Tech Specialist (R&D), "Data Points" in PC Techniques (Coriolis Group) and was editor for the puzzles & problems section of Abacus (Springer-Verlag).
He is a regular speaker and SQL instructor for Digital Consulting Inc., Norm Di Nardi Enterprises, Boston University Corporate Education Center and Miller-Freeman Seminars.
Alan Cooper, the "father of Visual Basic," is an award-winning User Interface Consultant and Software Designer. His ten-year-old company, Cooper Software Inc., has assisted a broad range of clients in improving and creating exciting and successful products in a wide variety of categories. His unique approach to creating better software through goal-directed design is the subject of a forthcoming book called About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design, to be published by Programmer Press.
For nineteen years Alan Cooper has designed and developed shrink-wrapped software including SuperProject, published by Computer Associates; MicroPhone II for Windows, published by Software Ventures; and the visual programming user interface for Visual Basic, published by Microsoft. In 1976 Cooper founded Structured Systems Group, Inc.--a company that Freiberger and Swaine in Fire In the Valley said produced "perhaps the first serious business software for a microcomputer."
Bill Gates gave Cooper a Windows Pioneer Award at Windows World in 1994. The rare and coveted award recognizes how Cooper's part in the invention of Visual Basic contributed to the success of Microsoft Windows. Cooper is a director for both the Association for Software Design and the Software Entrepreneurs' Forum. He founded SEF's Windows SIG, the largest Windows developers group in the world. He is also a frequent, opinionated and engaging industry speaker and writer on the topics of user interface and conceptual software design.
Steve Adrien De Luca has been involved with performance, sizing, and capacity planning for the past 15 years. Before joining Oracle, Steve previously developed sizing methodology for Tandem Computers, Apple Computers, Digital Equipment Corp., and the U.S. Air Force.
Christopher A. Emerson has been developing large mission-critical applications using PowerBuilder since 1991. His background is in mini and microcomputers, starting in the early 70's, and he has been actively using 4GL languages since the early 80's. Chris is an independent consultant based in Seattle, WA.
Richard Finkelstein is president of Performance Computing, Inc. and Links Technology, Inc., Chicago based consulting firms specializing in client/server application development and relational database management systems. He has over 20 years experience in data processing and is a former vice-president for Codd and Date Consulting. Richard Finkelstein is a frequent contributor and columnist for many computer publications including Network Computing, ComputerWorld, Database Programming and Design, and DBMS Magazine. He is a well known lecturer whose seminars have been featured at major database and client/server conferences. He was recently selected by Information Week as one of the industry's "Six Hottest Consultants".
Ken Florian is President of RDI Software Technologies, Inc. His software development and management experience ranges from being a developer on small, stand-alone systems up to multi-million dollar PC applications that are being used by over 8000 people. Currently Ken is involved in the myriad activities required to expand a rapidly growing software company.
Maurice Frank is the Technical Editor of DBMS Magazine. He has over ten years experience developing database applications, drawing entity relationship diagrams, and watching Star Trek episodes (which explains why he has not written any books). You can reach Maurice on the Internet at mfrank@mfi.com, or via CompuServe at 72167,736.
Michael Gardner is the director of Borland's dBASE Development Group, and has ten years experience directing the development of dBASE-compatible compilers and interpreters. Technologies pioneered on projects Gardner has led include the first compiler for dBASE (1984), the first debugger for dBASE (1985), th first windowing in Xbase (1987), the first client server Xbase implementation (1987), the first CUA-compliant Xbase (1992), and the first object oriented Windows Xbase (1994).
Kyle Geiger is the architect of Microsoft's Open Database Connectivity (ODBC). He recently published his first book, Inside ODBC, which describes ODBC in detail from both a conceptual and hands-on programming perspective. Kyle has had 14 years of experience in the computer industry and has been working on database connectivity issues since he joined Microsoft in 1988. Kyle has had several roles in the ODBC group, including development manager and general manager. He has been a featured speaker at many database trade shows and events. Kyle also served as the first chairman of the SQL Access Group's API/CLI Technical Committee. Prior to joining Microsoft, Kyle was a software engineer at Wang Laboratories, where he worked on numerous desktop database products. He holds a masters degree in software engineering from the Wang Institute of Graduate Studies and a bachelor of science degree in computer science degree from the University of Washington.
Ken Getz is a programmer, technical writer, and educator. Formerly a member of the Ashton-Tate Framework development team, he currently develops custom applications and tools using Access, Visual Basic, Visual C++ and Microsoft Office. He's a 1993 and 1994 Microsoft Access CompuServe forum MVP award winner. He teaches Access developer classes, has written two Access books, is a frequent speaker at technical conferences, and is a contributing editor for Smart Access.
Katherine Glassey is responsible for marketing Brio Technology's products and providing strategic product direction for the company. She also directs the activities of Brio's marketing partner programs, consulting and training groups. As co-founder, Ms. Glassey brings to Brio Technology her commitment to develop powerful and easy to use desktop data access tools for the client/server market. Prior to joining Brio, Ms. Glassey managed the Applications Development Group at Metaphor Computer Systems. She is an expert database designer who has taught database design, designed databases and implemented end user access solutions for major corporations since 1984.
Ted Graham is a member of the Visual dBASE R&D team at Borland International. During his almost four years at Borland, Mr. Graham has held several positions in dBASE Technical Support and R&D. Currently Mr. Graham is responsible for white box testing, bug tracking and reporting, and dBASE programming.
Dr. Jim Gray is a specialist in database and transaction processing computer systems. He is founding Microsoft's San Francisco Research Lab with a focus on scaleable computing -- building superservers from commodity hardware and software components. His main focus is on automatic parallelism and fault tolerance within an NTcluster.
He has worked Digital, Tandem, IBM and AT&T on database, transaction processing, and operating systems. The most successful of these systems are DB2, IMS, NonStop SQL, and Rdb. He helped write the world's fastest sort program: 1.6GB/minute. He is editor of the Performance Handbook for Database and Transaction Processing Systems, and coauthor of Transaction Processing Concepts and Techniques. He holds doctorates from Berkeley and Stuttgart, is a Fellow of the ACM and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, serves on the National Research Council's Computer Science and Technology Board, is Editor in Chief of the VLDB Journal, Trustee of the VLDB Foundation, and is Editor of the Morgan Kaufmann series on Data Management. He authored many technical articles, frequently lectures at universities, and often reviews customer application designs.
Douglas M. Grimsted is CEO and founder of RDI Software Technologies, Inc., Des Plaines, Illinois. Founded in 1984, RDI specializes in large-scale custom applications written in FoxPro, Visual Basic or C/C++. RDI uses Function Point Analysis and CheckPoint software to size complex software projects in the $50K to $2 million+ price range, and has pioneered the concept of "Function Point Budgeting." With over 50 employees and growing rapidly, RDI is a Partner in the Microsoft Solution Provider program. Doug is the chairman of the ANSI Xbase Standards Committee.
Mike Gunderloy is Director of Technical Services for BackOffice Associates, a Microsoft Solution Provider based in Richmond, Virginia. He is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, the lead developer of the Access Professional Toolkit, the author of Creating Professional Applications With Microsoft Access (Pinnacle Publishing), and a contributing editor for Smart Access. He has been developing in and training others to use Access since its release.
Jack Hakim is the Chief Architect and Director of the Analysis and Design Department and is currently responsible for developing SBT's next generation product, an object oriented, client server accounting system. He has been an OO methodologist, C/C++ design team leader and Xbase developer for longer than he'll admit. Jack has published in many industry journals and spoken about Object Oriented Technology, Database and Client Server issues at many developer conferences. He is currently teaching a UC Berkeley class on OOP using Visual FoxPro.
Dr Terry Halpin, BSc, BA, DipEd, MLitStud, PhD, is head of database research at Asymetrix Corporation, and also has tenure in computer science at The University of Queensland. He is one of the main architects of Object-Role Modeling, and has authored over fifty technical papers and three books, including Conceptual Schema and Relational Database Design, 2nd edition (Prentice Hall 1995).
Doug Hennig is a partner with Stonefield Systems Group Inc. and the author of The Visual FoxPro Data Dictionary (Pinnacle Publishing). He has been a speaker at the FoxTeach Developer Conferences in Toronto and the Great Lakes Great Database Workshops in Milwaukee. Doug is the author of Stonefield's programming tools and class libraries for Microsoft FoxPro.
Michael J. Hernandez is the owner of DataTex Consulting Group in Seattle. He is a highly regarded Access instructor for Application Developers Training Company, and has written articles for Smart Access. Mike has also authored a book titled Database Design with Microsoft Access (Pinnacle Publishing). His specialty is relational database design with an emphasis on bringing good design techniques to the everyday business user.
Tom Hovis is a Windows Application Developer in Southern California, programming database applications in Delphi, Visual Basic, Paradox for Windows, and dBASE for Windows. He has authored dBASE for Windows Developers Guide and Co-authored Paradox for Windows Developers Guide.
Fletcher Johnson is a computer systems consultant and has been developing software and training since 1979. He has spoken at numerous developer conferences including Microsoft, Borland, and the PC Database Summit. In a continuing attempt to aid other developers in the community, he has founded user groups for FoxPro, dBase, C, and C++ and currently serves on the board of the Silicon Valley Computer Society.
Gopal K. Kapur, President and founder of the Center for Project Management, consults, writes, and educates in both the public and private sector. He is a noted authority on project management and project process architecture. His specialties include project portfolio management, software estimating, and error-free software development.
Known for his humor and charismatic presentation style, Mr Kapur speaks frequently at national and international conferences. His 24-step Project Process Architecture, developed over the past 17 years, has been adopted by many of the nation's leading Fortune 500 companies. By addressing project management issues at the executive level, Mr. Kapur is instrumental at effecting innovative solutions to corporate project management challenges.
In the late 70's and early 80's ComputerWorld published his first articles on structured methods, software maintenance, and reusable design and code. His articles also appear in Computer Decisions, Datamation, Data Management, and he has been interviewed by Dun's Review (a Dun & Bradstreet Publication). Mr. Kapur is the author of two textbooks on computer programming, IBM 360 Assembler Language Programming (John Wiley & Sons) and Programming in Standard COBOL (SRA). He is under contract with Prentice Hall to write a book on estimating software projects.
Mr. Kapur graduated summa cum laude from Thapar Institute of Engineering, India, and was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award in 1983 for his contributions to education by the President of India. He is a memeber of the adjunct faculty of the University of California at Berkely.
Dr. David M. Kroenke, author, programmer, educator and inventor, is one of the world's foremost experts on database theory and design. His landmark textbook, Database Processing, has educated a generation of database programmers. The fifth edition of the book was published in November, 1995.
Dr. Kroenke also has more than 25 years of database and application development experience. In the late 1980s, he conceived Semantic Object Modeling as a powerful new approach to constructing database applications. Today, college professors are teaching MSO in database courses throughout the world.
As chief technologist of Wall Data's SALSA Unit, Dr. Kroenke is helping develop and market SemanticObject Modeling-based microcomputer software products. Those products will enable computer users to build database applications with terminology specific to their businesses, rather than that of current database management systems.
Dr. Kroenke holds degrees in economics, business and engineering. He was the Hanson Professor of Management Science at the University of Washington in 1990-91, and was elected Computer Educator of the Year in 1991 by the International Association of Computer Information Systems.
Stan Leszynski is president of Leszynski Company, Inc., a Microsoft Solution Provider specializing in customized database applications and commercial programs. Now in its thirteenth year, the firm has created software used by almost two million people, including retail products for Microsoft, Microrim, and Qualitas. Stan also founded Kwery Corporation, a leading creator of Access add-on products including OLE controls. He speaks regularly in the US, Canada, and Europe at Access conferences, TechEd, and developer seminars.
Ken Levy is a software engineer at Flash Creative Management, Inc., a consulting and software development firm in River Edge, New Jersey. While spending most of his time working in the Los Angeles area, Ken specializes in the research, design, and creation of application development tools.
Michael Li is the president and founder of InfoCan Management Consultants Group, Inc., a growth-oriented independent consulting firm located in Vancouver, BC, specializing in network and database solutions ranging from Novell Netware to Client/Server technology. A frequent speaker at user groups and national conferences, Michael also teaches Clipper and dBASE for Windows in Canada and the US. He is the current Chairman and founder of the Vancouver Clipper Developers Association, the Vancouver Database User Group, and the Vancouver Delphi Association.
Greg Lief is president of Grumpfish, Inc., which has provided database developers with productivity tools and educational services since 1988. Mr. Lief has been a featured speaker at many U.S. and international developers conferences. He has co-authored three database development books. He is also executive editor of The Aquarium Publications, monthly electronic technical journals catering to Clipper, Visual Objects, and Delphi developers. Mr. Lief may be contacted via voice (503-588-2184), facsimile (503-588-1980), CompuServe (70673,355), or electronic mail (grump@teleport.com).
Paul Litwin is an independent developer, and a writer, editor, trainer, and speaker. He's the editor of Smart Access, a monthly newsletter for Access developers, and has written numerous articles and reviews for publications including Smart Access, PC World, and Visual Basic Programmer's Journal. Paul authored the Microsoft Jet Engine White Paper and is currently finishing work on two Access 95 books: Microsoft Access 95 Developer's Handbook (Sybex) and Microsoft Access 95 How-To (Waite Group).
Kent Marsh has been involved in developing business applications using client/server technology and relational databases since the early 80's. He has been a Sybase DBA, an Oracle DBA, and has developed in many 4GL's and GUI environments. Kent Marsh has been a full-time developer of PowerBuilder applications for four years. Mr. Marsh has long been an active member of PowerBuilder user groups and has served as the Vice President of the Northwest PowerBuilder Users Group. Mr. Marsh is a Certified Professional PowerBuilder Developer. He formed Millennium, Inc. in February 1993, which is dedicated to providing technical products and services to companies that use PowerBuilder. He is the author of PowerBuilder 4 Developers Guide, from SAMS Publishing, contributor to Secrets of the PowerBuilder Masters, and authored Object Oriented PowerBuilder, also from SAMS.
Marty McIntire is a Senior Analyst with Para/Matrix Solutions, Inc., located in Seattle Washington, which specializes in database application solutions and training. Before joining Para/Matrix, Marty served as a Business Systems Analyst with The Boeing Company concentrating on various mainframe and PC-based database systems - including Paradox development for corporate headquarters. He has been a speaker at the 1992 through 1995 Borland Developer's Conferences and is currently the President of the Pacific Northwest Paradox Users Group. Marty is a member of TeamB on CompuServe and is a technical editor for IDG Books and Prima Publishing.
Bertrand Meyer is president of ISE (Santa Barbara), editor of Prentice Hall's Object-Oriented Series, and author of several books including Object-Oriented Software Construction, Eiffel: The Language and An Object-Oriented Environment: Principles and Application. He has been working for many years on how to make software reuse a reality, and has summarized some of the results in the recent book Reusable Software: The Base Object-Oriented Component Libraries (Prentice Hall).
John Miller is presidentof Perpetual Data Systems, a database application development firm. He is the author of Template Programming in FoxPro 2. John was a featured speaker at the 1994 FoxPro User's conference and he trains for Application Developers Training Company.
Gene Moran is Manager of Product Marketing for the Interactive Information Exchange business unit at Voysys. He has a long-time involvement with database tools, and SI/VAR development in the high tech environment. Mr. Moran has served as a developer, manager, and technologist for various companies, working on a variety of database products. Prior to joining Voysys, he worked for Borland International where he was the Connections Manager that increased the number of third party developers using Borland tools.
At Voysys Corporation, Mr. Moran directs both a team of software engineers and marketing staff working primarily on the voysAccess (a voice, fax, and IVR toolkit) product line.
Kenn Nesbitt is an independent Windows and database consultant, formerly with Microsoft Consulting Services, a Visual Basic 3.0 Microsoft Certified Professional, contributing editor to Data Based Advisor, and contributing writer to Access/Visual Basic Advisor. Kenn is also the author of WebEdit, a Windows HTML editor for creating World Wide Web documents. You can reach Kenn on the Internet at kenn@europa.com, or http://www.thegroup.net/kenn.htm on the World Wide Web, CompuServe 76100,57.
Rod Paddock is president and founder of Dash Point Software, Inc. DPSI based in Seattle, WA, specializes in Visual FoxPro, Visual Basic and Access development. Rod has published numerous articles for publications such as FoxTalk, dBASE Advisor and Smart Access. His work is featured in the Using Visual FoxPro Special Edition from QUE Publishing. Rod is currently working on a Visual FoxPro client/server book with Val Matison, to be published by QUE.
Tony Parker has been working with Lotus Notes since 1993. He set up the Notes Network in Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic) for Andersen Consulting. Currently he is the Lotus Notes Business Development manager for Pinnacle Publishing, and Product manager for their line of Notes development tools.
Keith Pleas is an independent developer and author who does both on-site and public training. He is a Contributing Editor for Visual Basic Programmer's Journal and has also written for Byte, Datamation, ComputerWorld, Windows Tech Journal, and NT Magazine. Keith also developed the Visual Basic Professional Certification Exam for Microsoft and can be reached on CompuServe at 71333,3014 and via the Internet at "71333.3014@compuserve.com".
Greg Prosl is a business and technology visionary. He is responsible for the launch of the NetQuest Internet and internetworking solution and the development the VAR program at Questar. In his last position, as V.P. of Sales and Marketing for Core Systems Inc., he managed a staff providing sales, service and maintenance to national accounts for UNIX systems integration, established Core's profitable WWW presence in Aug. of 1994 and grew the business from launch to $1,400,000 in gross sales. While at Core Systems, Greg founded Tornado ePublishing, providing Internet connectivity, WWW design, hosting, maintenance and training. He has now integrated those services into Questar's NetQuest Solution.
Kevin Quinn has been a key contributor to Information Builders' development of leading desktop system tools and enterprise-wide connectivity solutions for over 12 years. His experience has encompassed the entire life-cycle of successful product development and delivery - from product design and management to quality assurance.
David Rauschenbach is project manager for client/server development at Application Methods. He has considerable experience in developing high-volume batch and transactional client/server systems, as well as bi-directional data replication. David is a focal point for expertise in client/server architecture and network operating systems. He presently specializes in upsizing desktop applications to client/server environments.
Mike Ricciuti is Boston Bureau Chief for InfoWorld. He has covered the database software and development tool industry for the past six years with InfoWorld, Datamation magazine, and as a freelance writer.
Dr. David Rozenshtein is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Long Island University/C.W. Post Campus and an independent consultant specializing in design and implementation of database systems and client-server architectures. His latest interests are in the programming and optimization of complex SQL-based systems.
Martin Rudy is co-owner and CEO of Para/Matrix Solutions, Inc. He was the Paradox Advisory Board Chairman for the 1992 Borland Database Conference and he spoke at the Borland Conferences. He is currently the vice president of the Pacific Northwest Paradox User's Group. He is co-author of the IDG Power Programming Secrets books for Paradox DOS and Windows.
Christian Schock has designed, developed and marketed award winning application development tool software products for the last decade. He is currently Senior Director of Desktop Middleware Technology at Oracle Corporation. Mr. Schock holds degrees from the California Institute of Technology and Whitman College.
Paul Sheriff runs Paul D. Sheriff and Associates, a consulting and training business in Southern California specializing in Visual Basic development using SQL Server, ODBC and Access. He is author of Visual Basic Power Guides, distributed by Building Blocks Publishing, and trains for Application Developers Training company.
Sames S. Shuster is Director of Technology for Systemetrics Software Solutions, a division of Medline Industries. Sames has been a leader, speaker and trainer in the XBase community in the past, but for the last two years has turned his attention fully to Object Technology and Smalltalk. He is now working on the Continuum (tm) Project, which is hoped to be the first three tier, conceptually consistent application development environment to fully use the potential of Visual and Declarative programming for the whole business application life cycle.
Brian J. Smith is the president of Information Center Associates, a Paradox development and training firm in Los Angeles. Brian is a past chairman of the Paradox Conference Advisory Board and was a featured speaker on the first Paradox World Tour. He has been the lead Paradox columnist for Data Based Advisor magazine since 1987 and founded LAPALS, the Southern California Paradox User Group, in 1986.
Kevin Smith is Partner at Softbite International, a leading database training and consulting firm. Softbite specializes in Delphi, Microsoft Access and Paradox for Windows, and offers training as well as the development of LAN-based and Client/Server systems. Kevin has trained thousands of developers all over the world.
Tom Spitzer is Vice President, Advanced Products at SBT Accounting Systems, the leading developer of commercial products built with standard PC database tools. He also writes the Desktop DBMS column in DBMS Magazine, and is a frequent speaker at conferences addressing contemporary information management issues. With SBT since 1987, Tom has designed and led the teams that developed many of the company s accounting and management products.
Ron Stevenson is president of Application Methods, Inc., a Seattle-based software consulting firm. Ron and his team have focused on database development for a dozen years and have worked exclusively with Windows database platforms for over 5 years. In addition to consulting, programming and training, Ron specializes in sample application development for new technologies.
Ron Talmage is a Senior Software Engineer with IntegraTrak, Inc., in Seattle. He has over fourteen years experience in software design and programming, including 4 years of FoxPro experience and 8 years of teaching computing at the college level. He has headed up development of a vertical market multi-user application for Fortune 500 clients, and is currently engaged in a large scale conversion of an application from FoxPro/DOS to FoxPro/Windows. He is active in local FoxPro and database user groups, and was a contributing author of the FoxPro 2: A Developer's Guide.
John Viescas is the author of Running Microsoft Access 2 For Windows, published by Microsoft Press. John has lectured at conferences and user group meetings around the world, including highly rated sessions on Microsoft Access at the Microsoft Tech*Ed conferences. He was recognized as a "Most Valuable Professional" in 1993 and 1994 by Microsoft Product Support Services. His company, Viescas Consulting, Inc., specializes in small business solutions using Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server.
Wister Walcott is the director of Product Management for Oracle Power Objects at Oracle Corp. His responsibilities include managing the relationships with development, marketing, and distribution partners. Since joining Oracle in 1988, Mr. Walcott has held various product management and field positions. He holds an MBA and a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University.
Mark West is the technical director of software development for Questar Microsystems. He is the author of the SSI+ specification and the ALP protocol specification. He has implemented the WebQuest HTTP server, which is the first server to incorporate the SSI+ specification. He has also implemented the client and server for the ALP protocol.
Jeff Winchell is a principal with The Sapphire Group, Inc., a Seattle-based consulting and training firm specializing in the practice and promotion of zero-defect database application development. Jeff founded the PC Database Summit to meet the growing need for a specialized forum devoted to PC database application development. He has presented at the Borland International and Fox Software developer conferences. His publications include FoxPro 2: A Developer's Guide, and numerous articles for DBMS Magazine, Network Computing, and Database Advisor. Jeff also founded the Washington Software Association's Database SIG.
Todd Wyder is the Methodologist for RDI Software Technologies. In this capacity, he is responsible for development and analysis of software development processes and techniques. He is a frequent conference presenter and magazine contributor. Todd has over 15 years experience in team management as well as process and product development and analysis.
Dr. S. Bing Yao is the founder of XDB Systems, Inc., a software company that develops and markets DB2-compatible database systems and tools on PC, LAN and downsizing platforms. XDB was the first to introduce a full implementation of client/server SQL engine on the desktop. Dr. Yao has provided technical leadership for XDB's advanced product research and development efforts.
Dr. Yao has been involved in the SQL technology for more than 20 years, both in research and in development. He is the author of over 80 articles on various topics on database technology. He has also edited books on database design and optimization. Dr. Yao is active in the database systems research community and has served as chairman for several international database conferences. He was one of the founders of the VLDB Endowment.
Dr. S. Bing Yao received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 1974. He is also currently a Professor of Information Systems at the University of Maryland.