Speakers

Brian Sletten is a liberal arts-educated software engineer with a focus on forward-leaning technologies. He has a background as a system architect, a developer, a mentor and a trainer. His experience has spanned the online games, defense, finance and commercial domains with security consulting, network matrix switch controls, 3D simulation/visualization, Grid Computing, P2P and Semantic Web-based systems. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from the College of William and Mary. He is President of Bosatsu Consulting, Inc. and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

He focuses on web architecture, resource-oriented computing, social networking, the Semantic Web, scalable systems, security consulting and other technologies of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

Jared Richardson, co-author of Ship It! A Practical Guide to Successful
Software Projects, is a speaker, consultant, and mentor with NFJS One. Jared has been in the industry for more than fifteen years as a consultant, developer, tester, and manager.

Jared can be found online at Agile Artisans.

Ken Sipe is a Technology Director with Perficient, Inc. (PRFT), IBM's largest service partner, where he leads multiple teams in the development of solutions in the SOA, Web 2.0 and portal domains, on both the Java and .Net platforms.

Ken was the founder of CodeMentor, where he was the Chief Architect and Mentor, leading clients in the execution of RUP and Agile methodologies in the delivery of software solutions.
Ken has a deep need to be highly diversified. Ken often works with IT executives on high-level strategic roadmaps, currently geared around service oriented architectures (SOA). Ken also likes to keep his hands "dirty" in the code, which has him on a regular basis, pairing or otherwise producing code. Ken is regularly requested by clients that know him to "rescue" projects, either through the streamlining of processes or the rapid production of code.

Mark Johnson is Director of Consulting at CGI where he focuses on raising the development bar so projects are brought in on time and under budget. Most important of all the project needs to be delivered to the customer's satisfaction.

Mark has worked on a wide range of technology during his career. Most recently he has focused on Groovy, Grails, and Seam as technologies which enable high quality applications quickly.

Mark is active in the software community as the President of the New England Java Users Group (NEJUG). When not working, Mark can be found riding his mountain bike on local trails and playing with his family.

Mark Richards is a Director and Senior Architect at Collaborative Consulting, LLC, a Boston-based Business and Architecture Consulting Firm, where he is involved in the architecture, design, and implementation of SOA, EDA, messaging, and other architectures, primarily in the Java platform. Prior to joining Collaborative Mark was an Executive IT Architect with IBM, where he worked as an SOA and enterprise architect in the financial services area. He has been involved in the software industry since 1984 and has many battle scars to show for it. Mark served as the President of the Boston Java User Group in 1997 and 1998, and the President of the New England Java Users Group from 1999 thru 2003. Mark is the author of the new book "Java Message Service (2nd edition)" from O'Reilly. He is also the author of "Java Transaction Design Strategies", contributing author of the new book "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know" from O'Reilly, contributing author of "NFJS Anthology Volume 1", and contributing author of "NFJS Anthology Volume 2". Mark has many architect and developer certifications, including those from IBM, Sun, The Open Group, and Oracle. He is a regular conference speaker at the No Fluff Just Stuff Symposium Series and speaks at other conferences and user groups around the world. When he is not working Mark can usually be found hiking with his wife and two daughters in the White Mountains or along the Appalachian Trail.

Neal is Software Architect and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery.
Before joining ThoughtWorks, Neal was the Chief Technology Officer at The DSW Group, Ltd., a nationally recognized training and development firm. Neal has a degree in Computer Science from Georgia State University specializing in languages and compilers and a minor in mathematics specializing in statistical analysis.
He is also the designer and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, video presentations, and author of 6 books, including the most recent The Productive Programmer. His language proficiencies include Java, C#/.NET, Ruby, Groovy, functional languages, Scheme, Object Pascal, C++, and C. His primary consulting focus is the design and construction of large-scale enterprise applications. Neal has taught on-site classes nationally and internationally to all phases of the military and to many Fortune 500 companies. He is also an internationally acclaimed speaker, having spoken at over 100 developer conferences worldwide, delivering more than 600 talks. If you have an insatiable curiosity about Neal, visit his web site at http://www.nealford.com. He welcomes feedback and can be reached at nford@thoughtworks.com.

Srini Penchikala currently works as an Enterprise Architect at a major financial organization in Metropolitan Detroit area. He has over 14 years of IT experience and has been working on Java projects since 1996 and J2EE technology since 2000. His main areas of interest are Agile Enterprise and Service Oriented Architectures, Domain Driven Design & Development In Practice, Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), Architecture Rules Enforcement, Enterprise Integration Patterns, and light-weight middleware frameworks such as Spring and Hibernate. He has presented at conferences and Java User Groups on topics like Agile Enterprise Architectures, Architecture Governance, and Domain-Driven Design. He has published numerous articles on J2EE topics on websites like InfoQ.com, ServerSide.com, O'Reilly Java Network (ONJava), DevX Java, java.net and JavaWorld. Srini also publishes a blog on Java, JEE, and other topics at http://srinip2007.blogspot.com/. He is also a leader of Detroit Java User Group (http://sites.google.com/site/detroitjug/).

Sri Sankaran has been professionally developing software for over 15 years. During this time, he has designed and delivered solutions for clients in industries as varied as insurance, energy, telecom and the retail sector. Leveraging the breadth of this experience along with the depth of his knowledge of pertinent technologies such as Spring, Hibernate, Ajax, Java and Ruby on Rails allows him to choose the right combination of tools and techniques to solve his customers divergent needs.

Over the years as a consultant he has been relied upon as the go-to person for matters of application architecture. Project managers look to his leadership and guidance in project estimation, staffing and delivery.

When he is not working on software he spends time with his family of wife, daughter and dog. Oh, he is a rabid dog lover and would love to one day have a pack of dogs and raise them to be well balanced therapy animals.

Stuart Halloway is the CEO of Relevance, Inc. (www.thinkrelevance.com). With co-founder Justin Gehtland, Stuart helps companies adopt agile, as well as innovative technologies such as Clojure and Ruby on Rails. Stuart is the author of Programming Clojure, Rails for Java Developers, and Component Development for the Java Platform. Prior to founding Relevance, Stuart was the Chief Architect at Near-Time, and the Chief Technical Officer at DevelopMentor.

Ted Neward is the Principal with Neward & Associates, where he specializes in high-scale enterprise systems, working with clients ranging in size from Fortune 500 corporations to small 20-person shops. He speaks on the conference circuit, including the No Fluff Just Stuff Symposium tour, discussing Java, .NET and XML service technologies, focusing on Java-.NET interoperability, programming languages, and virtual machine technologies. He has written several widely-recognized books in both the Java and .NET space, including the recently-released "Effective Enterprise Java", and the forthcoming "Professional F#". He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects, and speaks frequently at international conferences and user groups. He is author of ".NET Gotchas," coauthor of 2007 Jolt Productivity Award winning "Practices of an Agile Developer," author of "Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer" and "Programming Scala: Tackle Multi-Core Complexity on the Java Virtual Machine" (Pragmatic Bookshelf).