Welcome to the SOA and Business Process Conference

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Aaron Skonnard is a co-founder of Pluralsight, a premier Microsoft .NET training provider. Aaron is the author of Pluralsight's Applied Web Services, Applied BizTalk Server 2006, and Applied WCF courses. Aaron has spent years developing course materials and teaching professional developers throughout the world. Aaron speaks frequently at conferences throughout the year including PDC, TechEd, and many others. Aaron has written numerous books, articles, and whitepapers including the Essential XML Quick Reference (Addison Wesley, 2001), Essential XML (Addison Wesley, 2000), and his popular XML column in MSDN Magazine: The XML Files . He currently writes MSDN's Service Station column in conjunction with his blog, which services as a more frequent pit stop through the Service Oriented universe. Microsoft recognizes Aaron as an MVP for his contributions to the XML Web Services community.

Aino-Maija Fagerlund has wide experience within Finnish and international software companies. She is the CEO and co-owner of Finnish software company FRENDS Technology, Inc., specializing in process integration technology. Her company is recognized as leading process integration technology provider with high customer satisfaction among high end customers and partners in Finland. Aino-Maija Fagerlund is also a board memberships in Finnish Software Entrepreneur Association and Tekes Technology Program Fund. She is Chairman of Finnish Chapter of International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners.

Dr. Alan Josephson is a Senior Practice Consultant for EMC Corporation, specializing in Microsoft Office system development. He has created custom Office Business Application solutions for clients in the financial, insurance and energy sectors. His article “Microsoft Office as a Platform for Software + Services” appears in the upcoming issue of The Architecture Journal.

Alan is from the north of England, and living in Stockholm Sweden. He has been working as a developer with Microsoft technologies since 1995, starting out with C++, and working with VB, ASP, SQL Server before moving to .Net with the early betas. Since November 2003, he has been focusing on BizTalk Server, working as a consultant in the UK, then taking up a full time position as BizTalk architect /developer for KnowIT Consulting in Stockholm. He is also a certified trainer, and delivers BizTalk and related courses both from the Microsoft Official Curriculum, and the advanced “Deep Dive” training in partnership with QuickLearn.

Andreas Erben is a Principal Consultant with DAENET GmbH, a Microsoft Gold Partner based in Frankfurt, Germany with subsidiaries in Bosnia, Croatia and the Netherlands. DAENET won the “Technology Innovation Partner of the Year” award in 2005. Andreas helps customers to choose the appropriate technologies, find efficient solutions, establish a sound architecture and tackle integration issues; typically through all phases of a project from early scoping and planning to delivering the final product. His key areas of interest are: SOA, BPM, Workflow, EAI, Microsoft BizTalk Server and specifically BizTalk RFID. His professional involvement in the IT world started in 1989. His blog can be reached at http://developers.de/blogs/andreas_erben/default.aspx.

Andrew Benson presently owns Readiness and Partner Programs for the Customer Engagement Solutions (CES) Group within Microsoft’s Enterprise Sales Productivity (sales execution best practices) organization. In his area of focus, he drives program strategy, development and cross organizational integration. Currently, he is making CES process, content and training available to partners via mainstream delivery vehicles. Previously in this organization, he drove initial development of the CES Execution Framework and companion Customer Engagement Workbook. Prior to joining the CES team, Andrew was a member of Microsoft’s Business Value Group and routinely engaged in an advisory capacity with nearly every product and service organization in Microsoft to develop business value related strategy, messaging, evidence, and ROI tools during his 6 year tenure with the group. Andrew has experience in all aspects of Sales, Product Development and Marketing, Finance, Manufacturing operations, Computer and Website development for large and small organizations.

Bash Badawi has 20 years of IT experience. Graduated in 1990 from the University of Alabama with a Computer Science and Math Degree, Bash held several positions in the IT/Banking industry and the Public Sector with a specialization in Integration, Application Development, and System Architecture. Bash has been with Microsoft for 7 years serving as a Principal Consultant, an Enterprise Strategy Consultant in EMEA and a Senior Field Program Manager covering the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic with the BizTalk Group and has been working with BizTalk Server since the product’s inception”.

Brian has a broad background in multi-channel retail serving in senior positions both within the retailer community as well as in software development roles. Prior to joining the company in 2005, Brian served as Director of Corporate Strategy for Retek, Inc., responsible for strategic initiatives across their broad portfolio as well as merger and acquisition strategy. Brian was also in charge of Multi-Channel Architecture Strategy for Target Corp and CIO for Rivertown Trading Company, a $200M Direct Marketing Retailer. Brian serves as a Director on the ARTS Board of the National Retail Federation.

Brian Wilkinson is one of the founding members of Accenture’s Process Architecture specialty organization. He also has global responsibility for Accenture’s BPM Offering. Mr. Wilkinson has implemented SOA and BPM solutions for some of Accenture’s largest clients. He has been involved in process-driven integration work for over 10 years in both custom and packaged software environments.

Chen Yang is a Regional Manager with the Customer Engagement Solutions (CES) Field Team. Within the Field Team, Chen focuses on Application Platform Optimization (APO), helping customers build the foundation for application development, and he also manages the Software Roadmap program which supports the field in becoming a strategic partner to their customer by showing the value of Microsoft's innovation in their IT business plans. Prior to joining Microsoft, Chen was the 2nd VP of IT infrastructure in one of the largest financial service Company in the Dominican Republic, responsible for IT support, Operation and Corporate Business Intelligence Initiative. He also worked as IT and Marketing manager for the local Telco in IT operation as well as Data Service marketing to consumers. Chen holds a Masters in Computer Science from Kansas University and a Summa Cum Laude Bachelor in Computer Science from the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Ureña, Dominican Republic.

Chris Madrid is a Solution Architect at Microsoft, where he is a member of the Enterprise SOA Solutions Team focused on helping customers reach their full potential by implementing service-orientation concepts on the Microsoft platform. Prior to Microsoft, Chris focused on service-orientation as a Senior Solution Architect at Avanade, an Accenture and Microsoft joint-venture consultancy. Chris has published several articles covering SOA and Web services technologies, and has delivered numerous talks and presentations at conferences and architectural forums.

As a Senior Product Manager in Office Marketing, Christian is driving marketing and strategy for the Business Process capabilities in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007. He is also responsible for the Microsoft Office Forms Server business and marketing of the Form Services capabilities within the Office 2007 system. Christian Stark joined Microsoft in 1991 to localize Microsoft Project 3.0 in his native language German. From there he held positions in Microsoft Project marketing and Microsoft Word product planning driving adoption of HTML as a native file format before he joined the InfoPath team a Program Manager then known as Netdocs. There he invented and designed most of the interaction UI of InfoPath and shipped InfoPath 2003 and the SP1 before moving to the Forms Server team. After inventing, designing and shipping InfoPath he decided to help drive the Form Services business for Microsoft in his current position. Prior to moving to the US he spend a lot of time with CAD, CAM and CIM systems and holds a Masters degree in mechanical engineering and production technology from Karlsruhe University in Germany.

Craig Butler is a Senior Consultant/Integration Architect at Computer Technology Solutions, Inc in Birmingham, AL. He is responsible for the design and implementation of and creation of the Integration practice at CTS and is actively involved in all BizTalk Sever/HIS engagements at CTS. Craig is also a leader of CTS’s Application Integration CoE and a member of the Microsoft Virtual Technology Specialist Team. Craig has been at CTS for 3 years and has been in the industry for 7 years, concentrating on customer Integration solutions. Craig currently holds MCSD.NET and MCTS – BizTalk Server 2004/2006 certifications. Craig is based in Birmingham, AL and lives there with his wife Melissa and daughter Elizabeth.

Damir Dobric is co-founder, managing director of DAENET GmbH with subsidiaries in Bosnia, Croatia, Germany and Netherlands. He has built solutions based on Microsoft technology for more than 20 years and currently works as lead architect for DAENET, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and one of leading technology integrators specializing in the Microsoft technologies. He was the recipient of the Technology Innovation Award solution for year 2005, speaks at conferences, universities and an author in diverse magazines in Europe.

Danny Garber is the SOA Solutions Consulting Architect with the Center of Excellence (CoE) team in Microsoft Enterprise Services of East Region, US. He joined Microsoft in July 2006 as a SOA and BizTalk Server Integration SME. During his 21+ years of IT experience, 13 of them in a role of architect, Danny had been engaged on various consulting customer engagements assisting customers to plan and implement SOA solutions, while addressing various best practices and state-of-the-art technologies. Danny is an active member of Microsoft SOA Insiders group, helping to shape the current and future Microsoft SOA Service Offerings and strategy. Prior to joining Microsoft, Danny was with IBM Global Services where he served as a member of SOA Competency Architect Team practicing and enhancing IBM SOA Methodology and IBM SOA Reference Architecture on Microsoft platform. Danny constantly speaks at various technology events including Microsoft TechEd, TechReady and IBM SHARE.

Dan Rogers is responsible for monitoring architecture and business strategy related to monitoring and reporting and visualization of performance measurements within the Cloud Infrastructure Services team on the Windows operating system group. The CIS monitoring team provides solutions to the Windows Live services teams as well as the Microsoft Network (MSN). Dan has worked with key Microsoft internet services, including Hotmail, Storage and Passport to improve their ability to measure service performance and determine what service quality levels are being delivered to partners. Previously at Microsoft, Dan has worked on products including Visual Studio, Biztalk and UDDI services.

Darren Jefford has worked for Microsoft UK for over five years. He is as a Principal Consultant within the Application Development Consulting (ADC) team where he works with a variety of customers and partners to architect, develop and test solutions built on the Microsoft platform, leveraging the entire breadth of Microsoft development technologies. Recent customer work has led Darren to focus on BizTalk Server and Visual Studio Team System alongside the core .NET platform. As a result of this, Darren recently authored Professional BizTalk Server 2006 and co-authored Professional Visual Studio Team System 2005. Darren has previously worked as a consultant and as a Software Engineer for a number of software houses in the UK, developing market trading platforms and financial software using a wide range of Microsoft technologies including C++, COM and SQL Server. Darren cut his developer teeth on the Sinclair Spectrum and BBC Micro and then upgraded to an 8086 where he got hooked on the PC platform. He subsequently learned C++ which led to a junior software development role at the tender age of 15.

David Chappell is Principal of Chappell & Associates (www.davidchappell.com) in San Francisco, California. Through his speaking, writing, and consulting, he helps IT professionals understand, use, and make better decisions about enterprise software. David has been the keynote speaker for many events and conferences in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia, and his seminars have been attended by tens of thousands of IT decision makers, architects, and developers in forty countries. David’s books on enterprise software have been published in ten languages and used in courses at MIT, ETH Zurich, and other universities. In his consulting practice, he has helped clients such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Stanford University, and Target Corporation adopt new technologies, market new products, train their sales staffs, and create business plans. He holds a B.S. in Economics and an M.S. in Computer Science, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dhananjay Mahajan is a program manager in the Management and Services Division. In his role, Dhananjay is responsible for enabling Microsoft .NET application monitoring and Web services management. In the past, he has been involved in building the management infrastructure for Web services. He has also worked on .NET application server technologies such as .NET Transactions, Distributed Transaction Coordinator, and Enterprise services (COM+).

Technical Fellow
Dr. Donald Ferguson is a Microsoft Technical Fellow in Platforms and Strategy in the Office of the CTO. Don focuses on both the evolutionary and revolutionary role of information technology in business. Microsoft expects that Don will be involved in a variety of forward-looking projects.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Don was an IBM Fellow and Chief Architect for IBM’s Software Group (SWG). Don provided overall technical leadership for WebSphere, Tivoli, DB2, Rational and Lotus products. He also chaired the SWG Architecture Board (SWG AB). The SWG AB focused on product integration, cross-product initiatives and emerging technology. Some of the public focus areas were Web services, patterns, Web 2.0 and business driven development. Don guided IBM’s strategy and architecture for SOA and Web services, and co-authored many of the initial Web service specifications.

Don’s primary hobby is martial arts, specifically Kenpo Karate. He earned his black belt in December, 2005.

Don Smith is the Technical Product Planner for the Web Services & Integration program on the Patterns & Practices Team (P&P) at Microsoft, which is responsible for building the existing and future releases of the Web Service Software Factory. He has over 12 years of development experience, and before joining P&P, Don provided design and code reviews, training, and consulting for Microsoft customers on their distributed application solutions with a focus on Web services and XML related technologies.

Dwight Goins has more than 10 years of experience developing enterprise-level applications and teaching courses based on Microsoft products and technologies. Prior to joining QuickLearn as an instructor, Dwight worked for Hewlett- Packard as a courseware developer and trainer with a specialization in Microsoft .NET application development training. Over the last three years, Dwight has developed and delivered BizTalk Server Deep Dive training and .NET developer “road shows” for at locations across all over the world. Dwight is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and teaches C#, ASP.NET, AJAX, .NET Framework, XML/XSL, SQL Server, and advanced BizTalk Server training to developers worldwide. Dwight was also the lead author for the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 certification exam.

Ed Horst has more than twenty years of experience in planning, marketing and developing distributed systems, management frameworks and development tools. He was the vice president of Marketing at OnKilter, a strategy execution software vendor, and Provato, an electronic contract management solution provider that was acquired by I-Many. Previously, he was a founding member of the marketing team at Forte and held various engineering and product management positions at Ingres. In addition to his work at leading software companies, Mr. Horst served for several years as an IT Director for Atlas Die, a Midwestern manufacturing firm, where he was an early implementer of several early-stage technologies, including CAD applications, relational databases and wide area networking systems. Mr. Horst has participated in several panel discussions and many speaking opportunities, both within the United States and abroad, including several joint seminars with Forrester and Gartner analyst firms; user group meetings for IBM, Oracle, Forte and Sun; and industry exhibitions. Ed has spoken at numerous industry events including the SOA Leader’s Forum, XML Web Services One, Interop New York 2006 and dozens of live webcasts on the subject of SOA. Mr. Horst has spoken at SD West 2007, Interop 2007 and STAREAST 2007.

Frank Martinez is a recognized expert in the area of distributed, enterprise application and infrastructure platforms. Mr. Martinez is focused on driving development of scalable service-oriented infrastructure software that integrates business processes and information enterprise-wide. Mr. Martinez’s reputation as a technological visionary is demonstrated by his record of bringing innovative and commercially successful software solutions to market. He has had operating roles as a senior executive of several VC-backed firms, and was instrumental in building Intershop Communications into a multi-billion dollar public company in less than three years. Mr. Martinez was recently named an InfoWorld Innovator by InfoWorld magazine and has also been named one of 25 leading IT innovators by CRN.

Fredrik Löfberg is responsible for the integration development work at Eltel Networks. The customer processes in service industry are complex and very demanding. This needs a clear vision from integration architecture and also the underlying technology must be reliable and flexible. This has been solved with Microsoft Biztalk Server 2006.

Gabriel Morgan has over 11 years developing enterprise-grade software in Online Retail and Financial Services industries and is currently an Enterprise Application Architect on Microsoft IT’s Enterprise Architecture team. He has extensive experience in the design, development and implementation of distributed software systems with a particular focus in optimizing software agility to enable the agile business. He has over 5 years consulting experience providing senior executives strategic assistance in the development of system integration architectures, as well as alignment of emerging technological innovations with business and IT strategies to a wide array of clients. He has been published on IASA, Skyscraper and MSDN. His current responsibility is deriving system architecture from business strategy for Microsoft’s software + service business models.

Hatay is an experienced architect at Microsoft Consulting Services UK and is recognized as a global lead and subject matter expert on Service Oriented Architecture. Over the years, Hatay has architected several award-winning and market-leading global solutions within the Financial and Public Service Sectors, helping his customers to develop products, services and strategies for emerging industry trends. For the last couple of years, Hatay has been focusing on Business Architecture, Business Process Management and Service Orientated Architecture. Hatay is an active member of the Microsoft SOA space and can be reached at hatayt@microsoft.com.

Hisashi Sato is responsible for product strategy of Visio 14, which is the next version of Visio 2007. Prior to the current position in product marketing group, he has been selling Visio as a solution to enterprise customers across industries, as Visio Solution Specialist in Microsoft Japan. With his background, he will share in his session how Visio has been used as business process analysis tool in enterprise.

Hugh Taylor, CISM, teaches at UC Berkeley's School of Information and serves in a marketing role at Microsoft’s Business Division. An internationally recognized expert on the business side of Service-Oriented Architecture, he is the author of the books, The Joy of SOX: Why Sarbanes Oxley and Service-Oriented Architecture May Be The Best Thing That Ever Happened To You (Wiley 2006) and Understanding Enterprise SOA (Manning 2005), and the upcoming Event-Driven Architecture: Theory and Practice (Prentice Hall). He has spoken about SOA at the IBM Rational DeveloperWorks conference, the HP Technology Forum, the Institute for Internal Auditors (IIA) International Conference, AeroSpace Corporation, and Booz Allen Hamilton. Hugh received his BA and MBA from Harvard.

Ian is currently working as a senior architect and evangelist on Fujitsu’s global IT Industrialization program (known as TRIOLE), concentrating on the industrialization of applications delivery. Ian has previously spent time in the Financial Services, Government and Telecommunications sectors, mostly working as an architect and evangelist. His particular interests are around Business Architecture, Service Orientation, Utility Computing and Social Software, areas of interest that started during his research at Cardiff University. Ian can be reached at ian.s.thomas@uk.fujitsu.com.

Jan R. Cirpka is a senior solution architect with Winvision – a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the Netherlands. The reason he joined the company is its no-nonsense vision, putting the end-result for the customer first. Winvision’s approach simply is: out of the box functionality where possible, custom development as necessary thus using the complete suite of Microsoft products to its best. Jan has been architecting and designing collaborative solutions for more than a decade now and has worked with Microsoft products from their early days. He is always looking forward to new challenges of integration with shrink-wrapped products and the search for their appropriate extension points.

Jason is a skilled and experienced software engineer, architect, and consultant with a long track record of success in complicated, high-profile software development projects. He has significant experience with .NET, Windows and web application development and is one of four Canadian BizTalk Server Virtual Technology Specialists with five years of challenging BizTalk projects under his belt. He has worked in health care in both the United Kingdom and Canada and is intimately familiar with the technical issues faced in implemented SOA and integration in health care organizations. Jason is currently employed as a Senior Consultant at KnowledgeTech in Vancouver, Canada.

Jeff Johnson is a technical specialist from the Microsoft Enterprise & Partner Group (EPG). His focus is the Microsoft Application Platform technologies such as Visual Studio, .NET, BizTalk Server and the data platform. Jeff works to help Microsoft’s enterprise customers and partners understand how the Microsoft platform can enable their vision for greater business agility and success using the Microsoft Application Platform. Jeff joined Microsoft from BEA Systems where he worked as a principal consultant in the Architecture & Advanced Services (AAS) consulting practice.

Jesse Shiah is the co-founder and CEO of Ascentn, the recipient of the 2007 Gartner Cool Vendor for Business Process Management (BPM) and 2005 Microsoft Partner of the Year in Technology Innovation. Ascentn pioneered .NET based modern BPMS, AgilePoint, that enables both IT and business to rapidly create, deploy, share, and modify process based, SOA-aligned composite applications within an IT controlled ecosystem. Prior to founding Ascentn, Shiah has held management positions at various institutions, delivering process-centric business solutions to Global 2000s. He holds a MS degree in computer science and a MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His BPM vision is shaped by his 15+ years combined experience in both IT and business.

Jesus Rodriguez is the Chief Architect at TwoConnect, Inc., a Microsoft Gold Partner based in Miami, FL. He is also a Microsoft BizTalk Server MVP, an Oracle ACE and one of a few Architects worldwide to be a member of the .NET 3.0x Digerati team. As a member, Jesus has been selected to participate in a variety of Software Design Reviews with Microsoft’s Product Teams, including Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk Server. Jesus is the Lead Architect for several integration technologies such as BizTalk Server adapters for Web Services Enhancements 3.0, SalesForce.com, SonicMQ and the award winning Service Broker Enhancements. He derived his extensive experience with business process integration and messaging through numerous implementations of loosely coupled systems founded on the principles of SOA. An active contributor to the .NET and J2EE communities, Jesus focuses on the interoperability aspects between those two platforms. His contributions include several articles for various publications including MSDN, Architecture Journal, SOAWorld and Web Services Journal. Jesus is frequently seen leading sessions at Microsoft TechEd, SOAWorld, MVP Summit and the Microsoft Business Process and SOA Conference, as well as conducting Web Casts on varying SOA technologies. He is a prolific blogger on all subjects related to integration and has a true passion for technology. Contact Jesus at jrodriguez@twoconnect.com or through his blog at http://weblogs.asp.net/gsusx.

Joe Klug is a Senior Technical Product Manager on the BizTalk Server team at Microsoft Corporation. He is responsible for product management of BizTalk Adapters and Accelerators. He works closely with customers, field, and partners to provide technical collateral, product demonstrations and product planning. Joe joined Microsoft in 2002 as a Program Manager for BizTalk Server focusing on Web services and adapter integration. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Michigan Technological University and an M.B.A. from the University of Colorado. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked as an Integration Consultant at J.D. Edwards and RioLabs Inc.

John Callaway has more than 9 years of experience developing enterprise-level applications and teaching advanced courses based on Microsoft products and technologies. Prior to joining QuickLearn as an instructor, John worked as a independent Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) delivering C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, SharePoint, Commerce Server, and BizTalk Server classes across the U.S. Since joining QuickLearn, John has developed a number of Microsoft courses including Host Integration Server, BizTalk Server 2004 and 2006, and SharePoint Server. John is also the original developer and primary instructor for the BizTalk Server Deep Dive training which has been taught to over 2500 students worldwide. John regularly teaches BizTalk and SharePoint training to developers and systems engineers all around the world. John was also the lead author for the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 partner certification exam.

John is currently a Lead Systems Engineer for a suite of Enterprise Decision Management Technologies at Fair Isaac Corporation, including the Blaze Advisor Business Rules Management System. He engages in proof of concept development, product demonstration and technical support for the Fair Isaac sales force during the sales process. John’s background, relevant to this session, includes: More than 12 years of software architecture, management, development, testing maintenance and sales experience for companies such as Raytheon, IBM, The New York Times, The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and Fair Isaac Corporation. Experience includes: Chief Architect for an enterprise suite of software products designed to manage quality, increase reimbursement and mitigate risk for the nation’s largest public hospital network; Chief Architect at a New York Times Digital Property for web technology used by millions of people, and Lead Developer for Rhizome Collaborator, a peer-to-peer messaging platform constructed using Microsoft C# and Windows.Forms from the .NET Technology Platform.

Although Jon spent the first few years of his professional life as an attorney, he quickly found chasing bits more interesting than chasing ambulances. He first worked at the University of Minnesota, building a financial reporting Web site using ASP and SQL Server, specializing in automatic integration between multiple data stores. Since joining the training industry in 1999, Jon has devoted his time to working on various projects while migrating from the world of ASP and COM to the world of .NET, ASP.NET, and Web Services. Jon is most at home spelunking, trying to figure out exactly how things work. Deducing the details and disseminating that information to other developers is his passion. Jon wrote Essential ASP for Addison-Wesley, and co-authored Mastering Visual Studio.NET for O'Reilly. His most recent technology interest is BizTalk Server 2006. He has been working with BizTalk since before its public release, authoring BizTalk courseware, articles, and utilities, as well as providing BizTalk consulting services. Jon has also been involved with Windows Workflow Foundation since its beta release, and currently has been working with Microsoft delivering jumpstart training for BizTalk Server2006 R2 and BizTalk Server RFID.

J.R. Arredondo joined Microsoft in 2006 to help drive the initiatives of Business Process Management, Master Data Management, and Office as an Applications Platform, among others, within the Office Business Platform group. Prior to Microsoft, he was Director of Corporate Development at BMC Software, leading M&A initiatives around J2EE and .NET Application Management, Database Performance Management, and other System Management areas. Passionate about innovation, he conceptualized and helped launch a new development model in the form of the Incubator Business Unit to drive organic innovation. Before BMC, he formed and led the team that built the software platform that enabled Compaq Computers to attack the E-Commerce market in the Americas, creating a new software architecture and a new business in a very short period of time. There, he also led the Enterprise Application Integration and Business Process Management efforts. Before Compaq, he was Director of Product Engineering at a startup creating Rapid Application Development tools and environments to help application developers and business analysts quickly create business applications. J.R. has a B.S. degree in Computer Science and an MBA, and is a Jones Scholar from the Jesse H. Jones School of Management at Rice University.

Kevin is currently an Enterprise Architect at Healthways, Incorporated and is responsible for SOA, EDM and Grid computing strategies. Kevin has 21 years of experience as a software engineer and architect.

Matt is the EAI practice lead for Objectsharp Consulting based in Toronto, Canada and is also a BizTalk Server MVP. Matt helps customers to implement BizTalk solutions and is also the author and instructor for a 5 day BizTalk 2006 Developer course.

Marty Wasznicky is a Principal Program Manager for the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft, where he focuses on Service Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Service Bus, Enterprise Application Integration, and Business Process Management. He is responsible for helping customers and Microsoft partners in the US adopt and implement solutions in this space. Mr. Wasznicky has over 15 years of systems integration and custom business solution development experience in the IT industry. He joined Microsoft in 2001 and, prior to that, he worked for both Global 100 Companies and Microsoft Partners. Mr. Wasznicky has written nearly a dozen whitepapers and articles on various technologies, published by MSDN, Visual Studio Magazine and the Advisor Publications. Most recently, he was a contributing author for the Pro BizTalk 2006 book and leads the architecture and development of the Microsoft ESB Guidance.

Currently Director of eBusiness, Westcon Group (2006 to present): Sr. IT Executive reporting directly to the CIO. Responsible for the overall, global strategic management of both the B2C ecommerce websites, encompassing 25 websites across 18 countries and in 8 languages. Also responsible for direct B2B backend transactions with partners like Cisco, Nortel and Avaya and customers like IBM, Fujitsu, British Telecom and CDW. Marcelo leads a global team with members in the US, Canada and Holland with offshore development in Russia and India. Formerly Director of Consumer and Security Systems Wyndham World Wide (2002-2006). Managed the development and maintenance of consumer facing websites serving 35 million visitors, over 4 million annual customers and generating $350 million annually. Also directed the Security Infrastructure, serving the above consumers and 6700 domestic and international hotels. Founding partner of Innovative Design Solutions, IDS,(1996 – 2002) a technology consulting firm specializing in industrial and sales automation. BS, Engineering, Syracuse University. MS, Technology Management, MBA (December 07), Stevens Institute of Technology. Awards: Computer World 2005 “The Search for Heroes”, Laureate. Info World top 100 IT projects of 2004.

Matt is an independent consultant specializing in Microsoft .NET technologies with a focus on Windows Workflow Foundation, BizTalk Server, Windows Communication Foundation, and ASP.NET. As a writer, Matt has contributed to several journals and magazines such as .NET Developers Journal and MSDN Magazine, where he currently authors the workflow content for the Foundations column. In addition, Matt has contributed to several books on ASP.NET and general .NET development and written white papers for Microsoft including the BizTalk Server Messaging Engine Overview. Microsoft recognizes Matt as a Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for his community contributions around BizTalk Server. Matt also speaks at local user groups and events such as the Heartland Developer Conference and Tech Ed. As an instructor for Pluralsight, Matt is the author of the Applied Windows Workflow Foundation course and the Applied BizTalk Server course.

Matt is the technical evangelist for Windows Workflow Foundation focused on the early adoption of the .NET Framework and Connected Systems technologies. Based in Redmond, he frequently speaks at industry events and is the author of the workflow chapters in "Windows Communication Foundation Unleashed!" His blog can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/mwinkle

Mike Brooks leads Chevron Global Refining activities to develop the IT architecture for supporting operational activities of refineries and their supply-chain interactions. Previously EVP and co-founder of INDX Software, Mike led, developed, and introduced a successful model-based integration product. Mike has 15 years in upstream, downstream, and chemicals with Exxon and Chevron, and several more years with IT startups Wonderware, ObjectAutomation, INDX, and Infobionics. Mike is keenly interested in how usability permeates IT products and architectures to capture the most value for manufacturing businesses.

Mike has been with Fiserv ITI since 1988. He began his career as a banking software installer, and, over the years, has managed client support and software development groups focused on imaging and e-commerce products. Prior to his current position, he was the product manager in charge of delivering the next generation of the company’s core product, Premier.® Today, Mike heads the Research & Development Design group, a team of nearly 20 design architects responsible for all Premier® software, including research into emerging technologies, prototype development, and performance testing and assessment. A Nebraska native, Mike graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Founded in 1976, Information Technology, Inc. is headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska. Serving more U.S. banks and savings institutions than any other software and services vendor, the company offers several core solutions for organizations ranging in size from de novos to banks with billions in assets. ITI is a business unit of Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a Fortune 500 provider of financial services worldwide.

Mike Walker is the managing architecture strategist for the Financial Services vertical at Microsoft. Walker is responsible for driving and evangelizing Microsoft’s worldwide industry and vertical strategy in the banking, insurance and securities segments. Specifically, Walker ensures that financial services institutions around the world realize the full extent of Microsoft’s vision and value proposition, by overseeing areas such as industry strategy, marketing, solution development, partner development, thought leadership, and executive relations. Walker joined Microsoft in early 2006. His background is as a financial services strategist, specializing in business transformation around technology, but he combines this experience with a strong focus on strategic execution. Prior to joining Microsoft, Walker ‘s worked as an enterprise architect in banking, where he developed business strategies, conducted strategic infrastructure planning, and implemented technology projects. His experience includes bespoke and package implementation, enterprise process design and management, applications management and systems selection.

Monty Moeller works in a client partner role for the Healthcare Solutions division of Fair Isaac Company, the leading predictive analytics and decisioning company. Fair Isaac helps deliver more than 180 billion business decisions annually through its predictive models, scoring and decisioning technology. Moeller has been in the communications field for more than 30 years. He has served as owner or principal of several regional advertising and marketing firms, including the Moeller Ad Group, known for its expertise in healthcare, direct marketing and energy. Moeller’s interest in healthcare extends to volunteerism. He was Chair of the Board of the National Mental Health Association (now Mental Health America), the leading mental health advocacy organization with more than 300 affiliates. Moeller was with the Seurat Company, which was ultimately acquired by Fair Isaac in the late ’90s. The Seurat Company specialized in Precision Marketing for a variety of Fortune 500 companies. The combination of Seurat’s expertise and Fair Isaac’s predictive analytics and decisioning technologies can truly deliver “the right message to the right person at the right time”. Moeller has taken this Precision Marketing credo into the healthcare field – in communications and behavioral change – with dramatic results.

Ofer Ashkenazi is a senior technical product manager for BizTalk Server at Connected Systems Division Marketing. Before joining Microsoft, Ofer served as the Microsoft Regional Director for BizTalk in Israel for 3 years, helping IT professionals and developers to successfully implement enterprise integration solutions with BizTalk Server. At the same time, Ofer managed a consulting, training and professional services business for a Microsoft partner. For the past 18 years, Ofer has gained a broad technical background and deep practical experience from projects in the following topics: Enterprise application and data Integration, Legacy Modernization and BPM.

Ohad is the Chief Architect and president of Experts4D ( www.Experts4D.com ), a group of leading Microsoft technology experts who promote technology excellence while providing a wide range of mentoring and consulting solutions for projects and development teams. Throughout the last decade, Ohad has been helping companies in the areas of architecture, development and security, bringing his expertise as a Microsoft technologies Guru and mentor to design and implement large-scale enterprise solutions using Microsoft's technologies. Ohad, who carries the title of a Microsoft MVP for the last couple of years, is a frequent speaker at user groups and Microsoft conventions TechEd, DevDays, RUReady, Dev Academy in areas of Architecture, Patterns & Practices, Security and .NET Internals. Ohad can be contacted through his blog at www.Experts4D.com/Ohad.

Olaf Wagner is the SVP of Product Management and one of three founders of SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc. He assumed his current position in 1997. Olaf has a bachelor of science (honors) degree in computer science. He started playing with computers in 1985, first with a Sinclair ZX-81 (1Kb RAM) and immediately thereafter with a Commodore 64 (64Kb RAM). He knew at that moment that this was the career path for him. His very good eye for detail, which he credits to his German Origin, came in handy. Apart from his work, he is extremely fond of technology and gadgets, as well as the outdoors. When not at work, he is either trying out new gadgets, playing tennis or squash, or indulging in close-to-nature adventure activities like hiking, diving, waterskiing, windsurfing or off roading.

Pieter focuses on concepts of asset-based custom development for enterprise solutions. He is Solution Manager of Applications and Integration at Avanade Netherlands (www.avanade.com), including service oriented architectures, software development lifecycle management and software factories. In that role, he helps customers get the most out of their business and tools. Contact him for information on Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and .NET Framework 3.0 & 3.5. He also writes articles and speaks about latest Microsoft products.

Pradipa Karbhari currently serves as the Director of SOA and Business Integration at Sogeti USA, LLC. Prior to this, she was the National Director of Web Services and SOA for SilverTrain. Considered a renowned expert in her field, her experience spans over 17 years in Information Technology leadership, design and development, with an emphasis on Service Oriented Architectures, Web Applications, Web Services and Solutions Delivery. Having past experience in large multi-national companies, Pradipa has spent the last few years in Houston, serving a diverse market across several vertical industries such as Energy, Finance, Utilities, Health Care and Transportation. She is a registered speaker with the Object Management Group (OMG) Consortium.Pradipa’s reputation has earned her multiple speaking engagements at various international conventions (such as JavaOne, Web Services Edge, OASIS, OpenGroup and TDWI) based on the technologies and systems she has architected during the course of her career.

Ramon Ponte is a Solution Specialist for Microsoft's Application Platform in the Caribbean and Central America region. In his role, he focuses on helping customers, partners and the Microsoft sales force better understand Microsoft application platform technologies. Since he joined Microsoft in 2002, he has specialized in the integration space, managing the most complex projects in the region; mostly in the financial services and government verticals. Prior to Microsoft, Ramon managed the development department at a Microsoft Certified Partner, whose main area of expertise was system integration and e-commerce . He also worked as a consultant for a major insurance company and the largest grocery chain in Puerto Rico. Ramon graduated with a bachelor in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and currently holds the Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD), Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSD) and Microsoft Certified Professional + Internet certifications.

Industry Technology Strategist U.S. Healthcare Provider Solutions Microsoft Health & Life Sciences

As the Technical Strategist and CTO for Microsoft’s U.S. Healthcare Provider Industry, Fusco is responsible for setting the technical and innovation strategy in three key interaction areas: Customers, Partners and Product Groups. Fusco works closely with the Microsoft Life Sciences, Health Plans and World Wide Health Provider community in shaping the overall vision providing one common architectural point of view to the marketplace. Prior to joining Microsoft, Fusco served as VP and CTO for a large non-profit healthcare system and brings 16-plus years of healthcare IT leadership to Microsoft through direct patient care and technology management roles. Fusco has extensive experience in the provider industry and understands the challenges that face healthcare organizations to achieve clinical transformation with knowledge driven health and interoperability through a connected health framework.

Raul Camacho is an architect with the Enterprise SOA Solutions Team where he helps customers with the adoption of service-oriented practices in their application platform and infrastructure. For the past 18 months, Raul has focused on leveraging the Windows Communication Foundation and BizTalk Services to build a repeatable, enterprise-ready solution called the Managed Services Engine (MSE). With features that include service virtualization, metadata repository and runtime application of policy; the MSE helps Microsoft customers jumpstart their SOA implementations.

Rik Chomko has over 15 years of experience implementing rule-based technology. Prior to co-founding InRule, Rik was Chief Technology Officer with Calypso Systems, a solutions integrator based in Chicago. During his seven years at Calypso, Rik was responsible for both the architecture and delivery of systems to many of the firm's largest clients. Rik is recognized as an expert in emerging technology, having co-authored a number of system frameworks that provide analysts the ability to control application logic without programmer involvement. Rik has been both an award recipient and speaker at numerous technology and industry events including Microsoft Fusion, Comdex, and ACORD. Prior to his work at Calypso, Rik worked for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois where he served as a member of the Technical Architecture team on their largest mission-critical system. Rik has a degree in English from the University of Illinois at Champaign.

Corporate Vice President, Connected Systems Division
As corporate vice president for the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft Corp., Robert Wahbe leads the team responsible for Microsoft’s service-oriented architecture and Web services platform. His key product responsibilities include Microsoft BizTalk Server, Windows Server Active Directory, Microsoft Certificate Lifecycle Manager, and the wide array of distributed system technologies available in Windows and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0. Through these efforts, Wahbe leads the Connected Systems Division’s efforts to make it substantially easier to build, deploy and manage distributed applications.

Since joining Microsoft in 1996, Wahbe has served in a number of product development roles, with a focus on enterprise development tools in Visual Studio. In 2000, he co-founded the team chartered to deliver Web services and the Windows Communication Foundation; out of this grew the Connected Systems Division.

Before joining Microsoft, Wahbe was co-founder of Colusa Software Inc., a privately held software company acquired by Microsoft in 1996. Wahbe graduated in 1992 from the University of California, Berkeley.

Roy Carnes has been the Director of Sales at the Covast Corporation for the past 5 years, specializing in helping companies solve their complex B2B integration challenges. Prior experience includes management positions in start-up e-commerce companies, Compuware, Sterling Software, and Texas Instruments as a Manufacturing Engineer. He holds a B.S. in Human Development from Texas Tech University and a M.S. in Management Information Systems from the University of Texas.

Simon is a life science trained Solution Architect who was responsible for designing the Clinical Broker at a British Columbia Health Authority for their Laboratory Integration Project. This Clinical Broker was designed and built on the BizTalk Server platform and designed around a concept of canonical data model to separate provider and consumer systems, reducing the total maintenance overhead and development cost. The solution was heavily modeled using the Electronic Health Record (EHR) blueprint from InfoWay Canada. Simon has worked closely with numerous Health Authorities and Ministries to help implement the EHR Blueprint, both in British Columbia and across Canada, most recently consulting on the possible design of a provincial Health Information Access Layer (HIAL). He is experienced with both HL7 v2.x and v3.0 and has consulted with Microsoft on the design of their Health Connection Engine as well as designing a novel Clinical Broker engine based on the Enterprise Service Bus model.Simon is currently employed as a Senior Consultant at KnowledgeTech in Vancouver, Canada.

Stephen W. Thomas is an independent consultant specializing in BizTalk Server and other Microsoft Connected Systems technologies. He has been working with BizTalk for over 6 years and is a 3 year BizTalk Server Most Value Professional (MVP). Over the past 7 years, Stephen has done consulting work for numerous clients including many in the Fortune 500. Stephen also runs the BizTalk community site, BizTalkGurus.com. The site offers a community forum, over 50 BizTalk samples, various how-to videos, and Stephen’s blog.

Steve Swartz is a Breadth Architect in the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft. He coordinates and drives cross-group architectural issues. He joined Microsoft in May of 1997 as a developer working on the COM+ team. Since then, he has been a dev lead, a product manager, and architect working on COM+, Enterprise Services, WCF, and BizTalk. He began working in the computing field in 1980: he built econometric analysis systems on mainframes, military intelligence analysis systems on HP Basic workstations, massively parallel applications on Thinking Machines supercomputers, and internet-scope news applications for failed dotcom startups. He was an undergraduate at the Ohio State University, where he developed a fondness for collegiate sports; and a graduate student in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he developed a fondness for computing as one among many ways to avoid working on his dissertation. He enjoys cooking, hiking, travel, reading, and the Grateful Dead.

Ted Neward is the principal at Neward & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in enterprise software development and architecture, principally around the Java and .NET platforms. He is the author of close to a dozen books, including “Effective Enterprise Java”, “C# in a Nutshell”, “SSCLI Essentials”, and the forthcoming “Effective .NET”. He is an instructor with Pluralsight, and speaks internationally at a variety of conferences, including JavaOne, TechEd, and the No Fluff Just Stuff Software Symposia. He can be reached at ted@tedneward.com, and his blog, including the infamous “Object/Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science” essay, can be found at http://blogs.tedneward.com.

Tim Gruver is the Global Director of Technology for Microsoft Retail & Hospitality worldwide. In his role, Tim leads the Global technology organization and strategy in Retail & Hospitality to drive customer value through our Industry solutions that maximize the business value of Microsoft products. Tim owns the development of the long term technology strategy and vision for our retail verticals that align to our growth goals, lead engagements with our product groups to drive alignment of industry into our product group roadmaps, develop our industry maturity models that articulate the business value of the infrastructure optimization models and ensure Microsoft’s relevance in the industry through relationships with senior business leaders worldwide in the customer and partner communities and in industry standards organizations.

Tim Rayburn is a Principal Consultant with Sogeti USA and Microsoft MVP for BizTalk Server, he has over 10 years of experience developing solutions for clients across the country. He has spoken at many user groups, code camps and conferences including Tulsa TechFest, Houston TechFest and TechEd 2007. He is an active blogger on topics related to BizTalk, C#, and the development process. His blog can be found online at TimRayburn.net.

Tony is responsible for Partner Strategy within the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft focused on BizTalk Server. He is aligning the BizTalk channel strategy to support the business growth and driving programs and execution to feed and nurture the BizTalk partner eco-system. Tony has spent a number of years in a variety of roles at Microsoft Corp involved with partners and also several years in Microsoft Services working directly with partners in the UK and in Canada. Tony also spent time being a customer in Microsoft IT, driving complex systems integration projects using BizTalk Server and working closely with systems integrators to help deliver these projects.

William Oellermann is the Technology Director for the SOA Solutions Team in Microsoft Consulting Services, focused on driving and supporting strategic SOA opportunities across the United States. As an international speaker and author of numerous articles and the first serious book on the architecture of XML Web Services, “Architecting Web Services” (Apress; 2001), William has been at the forefront of Web services and SOA thought leadership for the past 6 years. Prior to joining Microsoft in February 2004, William spent nine years as a software architect in IT and consulting organizations leading the design of distributed applications for numerous Fortune 500 companies including American Greetings, Citigroup, Ericsson, Northwestern Mutual, US Bank, Neilson Media, Verizon, and Zale Corporation. Most recently, William has been leading the development of new solutions for enterprise SOA based on capability-based roadmaps and service virtualization.