Presenter Bios
Like every geek who grew up in the 80’s, David distinctly remembers getting his
first computer - an Atari 800XL. It absorbed every ounce of free time, especially
late at night, but taught him BASIC. After many years and several languages, he
now spends most of his time working in .NET but still has a special place for late
night coding sessions.
Since having an “agile awakening” a few years ago, he has a distinct need to grow
in new directions and surround himself with smart people who will help him to shape
this knowledge and practices. He has found Improving Enterprises to be a place filled with
people who share similar ideas and values as well as his passion for learning and
passing on that knowledge.
David is a regular speaker at user groups and code camps as well as an active member
of several local groups, including Dallas PragProg, Dallas .NET User Group, and the newly
formed Dallas User Experience.
He is passionate about development, specifically agile practices and processes,
and personal productivity. As a GTD practitioner, he’s always looking for his
“next action”. You can find his thoughts on these topics and more at Driven To Develop.
Jef is a founder of Improving Enterprises. Improving
is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for learning solutions, which is a sufficiently
long-winded way of saying that Improving offers Microsoft [Official Curriculum]
training. They also have a number of custom courses on agile development and software
analysis and design. Improving strongly believes that training is most effective
when applied in the context of a structured mentoring program co-incident with on-the-job
practice, and their consultants are experts at providing just that type of environment.
Jef is a strong proponent of agile software development practices and is proud to
be one of the first 70 people to be recognized as a Microsoft Certified Architect
for Solutions, an one of only 90 people ever to have received the distinction of
Microsoft MVP for Solutions Architecture. Prior to founding Improving, Jef spent
nearly five years with Axys Solutions/Geniant, where he was a Principal Consultant.
Jef also spent several years at ObjectSpace prior to that, where he learned about
object-oriented software development from some of the best people in the industry.
Jef is husband to his beautiful wife Aimee and father to his two wonderful children,
Eva (almost 5!), and Ben (16 mos).
Don McGreal is the Director of Learning Solutions at
Improving Enterprises,
an advanced software professional services firm. As an active member of the software
development community for over 12 years, Don welcomes change and has a passion for
learning – traits which are well suited for the unpredictable field of software
engineering. As a consultant, he has fulfilled many roles while ensuring that the
clients get the most from each engagement: Developer, Architect, Business Analyst,
Process Coach, and Mentor. As an instructor, he has created and taught classes in
requirements, architecture, design, and process for thousands of software professionals
around the globe.
Chris has been helping clients achieve success through technology for 8 years. He
has worked with both Java and .Net platforms to energize legacy systems and create
entirely new software assets. Chris believes that effective software development
is achieved through understanding the business opportunity, knowledge of current
technology, and use of appropriate software development processes. Chris has consulted
with companies in industries including Communications, Energy, Healthcare, Real
Estate and Retail to propose, design, and implement custom solutions involving enterprise
grade messaging, collaboration, and integration. Currently Chris is primarily focused
on Application Lifecycle Management. He has worked directly with Microsoft in helping
customers understand Team System in the South Central District through both speaking
engagements and direct consultation. Chris graduated with honors from the University
of Texas at Dallas with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science
For the last few years, Casy has been working in multiple software development roles,
primarily in a consulting capacity, in the North Dallas area. His core focus is
the .NET platform and supporting technologies. Mr. Watson became a Microsoft Certified
Solution Developer in 2006 and a Certified ScrumMaster in 2008. Casey's key professional
goal is to never stop learning.
Casey is a software development consultant with
Improving Enterprises,
a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner located in the Dallas area with a strong focus
on Agile practices and methods.
Rod is a Principal Consultant at Improving
Enterprises which provides training, consulting, and outsourcing services.
He has over 10 years of professional software development experience across a wide
variety of industries, technologies, and roles. He has coached and mentored several
teams on agile software development and is equally passionate about the organizational
and technical sides of effective software development. He is a frequent speaker
at software conferences and has written many articles on a range of software development
topics including agility, enterprise software development, and semantics.
Gary is a Principal Consultant with Improving Enterprises
Agile Practice. He entered the craft in 1986 and has played roles from Analyst Programmer
to educator to CIO. Gary's passion is centered in forming and nurturing high-performance
teams, and he has found agile methods to be the perfect companion. Being an old
fogey, he is witnessing the pendulum swinging back to the simpler, common-sense
methods that prevailed when our industry was newer and it was fun to solve our friends'
problems with shiny new technology. His appreciation for technical excellence and
higher thinking formed during his time at ObjectSpace, where he met the founders
of Improving and many of the other speakers at this conference. Gary is a Certified
Scrum Master about to turn Certified Scrum Practitioner and possesses strength in
product, project, requirements, and testing management.
Susan is a Principal at Improving Enterprises, a
dynamic firm that focuses on helping clients improve through learning in the classroom,
hands on consulting practice, and outsourcing in the US. Susan specializes in program/project
management, process development, and business analysis in client engagements where
she brings a unique perspective as both a Certified ScrumMaster and a Project Management
Professional. As the agile movement continues to grow , Susan takes a pragmatic
approach to the application and usage of the various agile techniques. She is active
in the local agile community as co-chair of the Dallas chapter of the Agile Project
Leadership Network.
Ken Howard is Principal at Improving Enterprises, a
firm which helps its clients improve through its learning, consulting, and outsourcing
solutions. Ken has been involved in most aspects of software development for over
23 years with such languages as diverse as COBOL, Smalltalk and Java. He was the
first speaker at Sun’s JavaOne conference to broach the subject of migrating from
COBOL to Java. Over the years Ken has provided consulting, training and mentoring
to companies in 12 countries around the world, helping with adoption of software
development best practices. Ken’s specialty is helping companies increase productivity
through efficient practices and pragmatic organizational dynamics. Read Ken's blog
at kenhoward01.blogspot.com.
Ed is an experienced Project Mentor specializing in the Software Development Life
Cycle process. Ed has assisted multiple organizations develop repeatable, sustainable
and time/cost effective SDLC, QA, SCM and delivery processes. Ed has over 20 years
experience in Hardware/Software/Load Test and Quality Assurance. He has supported
projects in a variety of industries to include Department of Defense, travel, automotive,
insurance and financial. Ed has several years of experience in setup up Software
Quality Assurance and Test groups, practices and processes from the ground up for
both start up and established companies.
Barry Rogers serves as Vice President of Professional Services for
Improving Enterprises.
He is an accomplished Certified Scrum Practioner and Certified Scrum Master. He
supports clients in both a hands-on and a mentorship capacity, supporting a variety
of roles including ScrumMaster, project manager, and business analyst. In addition,
Barry teaches agile project management and business analysis classes and is a facilitator
of leadership, communication and workplace motivator training.
Tony Mocella is a Senior Consultant with
Improving Enterprises
specializing in software development with the .Net platform. He has a strong passion
for Application Lifecycle Management utilizing such platforms as Microsoft Team
System to facilitate collaboration on software projects.
Over the course of his career, he has found himself always looking for ways to improve
himself and the processes around him. This passion is what first got him interested
in Agile practices in early 2004 when he had the pleasure of working with a few
guys from ThoughtWorks while he was working at Allstate doing work in the Actuarial
Sciences department. Those interactions eventually led him to work for ThoughtWorks
and give him a great opportunity to work with many great individuals. He eventually
tired of being on the road 50 weeks a year and decided to find some local work in
Dallas, and eventually that led him to Improving’s door, where once again, he finds
himself surrounded with some incredibly talented individuals.
As Vice President of Improving Enterprises, Mr.
Girvin leads the Microsoft Technology Practice and is a Principal Technology Consultant.
Mr. Girvin co-founded Improving Enterprises in August, 2004. As a Microsoft Most
Valuable Professional (MVP), Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), and Microsoft Certified
Professional Developer (MCPD), he contributes to the technical direction of the
company and to the developer community through the Microsoft Architect Council,
Agile Project Leadership Network, DFW SharePoint User Group, and Dallas C# SIG.