Doug is a software developer and principal consultant with Improving Enterprises. He has been developing software on Microsoft stack in the Columbus Ohio for over 25 years. Applications built range from custom Rules Engines and Graphical Kiosk Systems, to Assembly Line Integration and Website development. Doug has been focusing his hobby application development on the mobile platform & loves developing apps that challenge his mind. He learnt XAML and XNA in order to develop these apps.

Ben Blanquera is husband, dad, thought leader, entrepreneur, geek, wanna be jock and unabashed advocate for technology and entrepreneurship. By day he is a strategic transformation advisor and execution accelerator to CEO’s and CIO’s.

In 2011, Ben was named by Computer World to its Premiere100 list of top IT leaders nationwide. Senior leadership roles previously held by Ben include VP of IS for Progressive Medical, Director of the Columbus Technology Council, and Director at Owens Corning.

As a thought leader Ben facilitates the Central Ohio agile executive forum, is the founder of TechLife Columbus , writes a blog chronicling the Columbus Tech community – www.techlifeohio.com and is the curator of the Columbus Startup Digest. He is a frequent conference speaker on agile development, project management, and high performance teams.

Ben resides in Dublin with his wife Sandy and his 4 daughters.

Steve Jones is a Professional Scrum Master at Worthington Industries Inc. with fourteen years of IT experience and has been leading their Agile Transformation for the last year. A graduate of Ohio University with a degree in Business Management, he started his career in IT in the consulting world doing everything from mainframe programming to systems and database administration to VB programming and then into QA doing load and performance testing. Steve found his niche in combining his programming skills and his drive for quality and spent ten years doing test automation for a number of companies as a consultant which brought him to WI. After leading their testing team for a number of years, he was chosen to lead the IT department’s Agile Transformation… and has found a new niche.

Dan is a software developer and principal consultant with Improving Enterprises, focusing on web development and mobile applications. He has extensive involvement with front-end GUIs as well as back-end development and OO programming, and finds the state of technology right now as exciting as it has ever been. Dan is a Fine Arts graduate from The Ohio State University and lives in Clintonville with his wife and two hockey-playing sons.

Anita has enjoyed bringing IT and business together for a common goal during the past 12 years. She has consulted in the Business Analysis and Project Management areas across several industries including automotive, consumer goods, insurance, finance, banking and the public sector. Prior to consulting she worked in banking, education, and the airline industries.

Anita’s community activities include serving as a co-Founder of Indus Women Leaders, a co-Founder of JP Morgan Chase Women’s Leadership Organization, National Co-Chair of the Network of Indian Professionals – North America (NetIP), Founder and President of the NetIP-Columbus Chapter, organized leadership conferences designed to give young leaders the opportunity to gain skills needed to work successfully in community organizations, and has been an organizing volunteer of the Asian Festival in Columbus. She has spoken on the topics of Leadership, Diversity and signing up for the Bone Marrow Registry. Anita’s interests include reading, travel, art, skiing and especially spending time with family and friends.

James is the Vice President of Technology at Improving Enterprises in Columbus, OH. James has been involved in software development and architecture for 17 years. He has worked as a developer and architect on everything from small, single-user applications to Enterprise-scale, multi-user systems. His specialties are .NET development and architecture, TDD, SOA, WCF, Web Development, cloud computing, and agile development methodologies. He is an experienced mentor and author. James is a Microsoft MVP and former President of the Central Ohio .NET Developers Group. James book “Professional Test Driven Development with C#: Developing Real World Applications with TDD” was released in May of 2011.

Dan is an Agile Trainer, Mentor, Team Member and Evangelist. He began his career as a Business Analyst in a traditional command and control environment. After learning about agile, he sought out and joined his first Agile team in 2005, and has found Agile to be more productive, and more fun than traditional environments. Dan has a passion for helping people deliver better software by leveraging Agile values and principles. He is a co-founder of COHAA, and is currently responsible for programming. He also enjoys presenting at conferences and events. Dan joined Improving Enterprises in 2011, where he has focused on the people and interactions side of Agile, helping multiple organizations change not just their process, but their culture.

Agile has been not only a great career move for me from the aspect of looking forward to what the day holds for me, but also a life altering transformation. It is because of Agile I pursued my Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership and why I came to Improving as a Consultant. Both of these have allowed be to share what I have learned in my journey with others so they may also find satisfaction in what they are doing every day.

An international speaker, Microsoft MVP, MCSD, CSM, and CSP, and a passionate member of the developer community, Phil Japikse has been working with .Net since the first betas, developing software for over 20 years, and heavily involved in the agile community since 2005. Phil works as the Agile Practices Evangelist for Telerik’s Agile Project Management Division, serves as the Lead Director for the Cincinnati .Net User’s Group and the Cincinnati Software Architect Group, and is the host of the Zero To Agile podcast. Phil also founded Agile Conferences, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to advancing agile in all aspects of software development. Phil also serves as Cub Master for his sons’ Cub Scout Pack, volunteers for the National Ski Patrol, and is a recently retired Firefighter/Paramedic. You can follow Phil on twitter via www.twitter.com/skimedic and read his blog at www.skimedic.com/blog.

Sanjiv Augustine is an industry-leading agile and lean expert, author, speaker, management consultant and trainer. He is the President of LitheSpeed, an agile consulting, training and coaching company. For over 10 years, Sanjiv has assisted leading clients adopt Agile including: Nationwide Insurance, VIPS/General Dynamics, HCA Healthcare, The Capital Group, StreamSage/Comcast, Capital One, CNBC, NBC Universal, and the Motley Fool. He is the author of the book Managing Agile Projects (Prentice Hall 2005) and several publications including Transitioning to Agile Project Management: A Roadmap for the Perplexed, The Lean-Agile PMO: Using Lean Thinking to Accelerate Agile Project Delivery; and the founder and moderator of the Yahoo! Agile Project Management discussion group. Sanjiv is also a founder and advisory board member of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), and an organizing member of the Project Management Institute (PMI)’s Agile Community of Practice. He presents regularly at several agile and PMI user groups and conferences worldwide. As an in-the-trenches practitioner, he has personally managed agile projects varying in size from five to over one hundred people, trained thousands of agile practitioners via workshops and conference presentations, and coached numerous project teams.

Dr. Charles (Chuck) Suscheck is a principal consultant at Improving Enterprises where he specializes in software development methodologies and agile project management. He has over 25 years of professional experience in information technology and has been an agile coach for over 7 years. Dr. Suscheck’s holds a Doctorate, Masters, and Bachelors in Computer Science and is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST), Professional Scrum Master (PSM I and II), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP), PMI Agile Certified Professional, and certified RUP specialist. An educator at heart, he has over 40 published articles and conference proceedings and has spoken nationally andinternationally at conferences such as OOPSLA, ECOOP, Agile 20xx, and Borcon on a wide variety of topics.

Ricardo Wilkins is a SharePoint Consultant and Practice Lead for Improving Enterprises, focusing on the client delivery of quality SharePoint solutions, especially in the area of custom development and application lifecycle management. He’s helped deliver SharePoint solutions in the public, non-profit, and private sector. He’s also been heavily involved in the local and international SharePoint community, and has given talks and technical demonstrations at local user groups, non-profit agencies and national conferences and webinars. He’s also a contributing author at NothingButSharePoint.com and ITMartini.com, and co-authored a whitepaper with Quest Software on SharePoint Customization Best Practices. His blog on SharePoint topics can be found at www.sharepointcowbell.com.

Chris Hoover is a QA Analyst at IGS Energy in Dublin. He specializes in writing EDI requirements, testing software integration end-to-end, and building automation tools with VBA. Chris completed Green Belt training through MoreSteam University. He is now creating a suite of Lean Six Sigma metrics to gauge our system’s overall quality levels. Prior to joining the IT Group, he spent three years in the IGS Energy Rotation Program. This experience provided in-depth training and skills development in a number of functional areas, such as: Finance, Risk, Supply, Operations, and Marketing. You can follow him on Twitter at @AgileSixSigma or read his Blog at www.AgileSixSigma.blogspot.com.

Hi, I’m Jon Kruger and I am an independent consultant in Columbus, OH. I specialize in software solutions, project leadership, and Agile coaching and training and I have experience in a wide range of industries and environments. I use my experience as a leader and software developer to find ways to create better quality software, improve the software development process, and maximize value for the business. On the side, I run the Columbus ATDD Developers Group and provide test-driven development training (tddbootcamp.com). You can follow me on my blog (jonkruger.com) or on Twitter (@JonKruger).

Brandon specializes in leading and enabling agile transformations at all levels. His passion lies in building lean organizations that deliver high-quality software and can quickly adapt to change. A developer at heart, you will often find him discussing patterns, architecture, and the hottest new framework; however, he realizes the greater importance of vibrant work environment where people are respected, empowered, and engaged.

As the Director of Application Development at IGS Energy, Brandon oversees cross-functional teams comprising analysts, developers, and testers. He studied Computer Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University where he still mentors students and prospective developers.

Rosie O’Leary is currently a systems analyst at IGS Energy. She has over 15 years of business analysis experience in the energy, banking, telecommunications and publishing industries, and because her background also includes certifications as a Professional Scrum Master and in process improvement as well as some “dabbling” in web development, she is fluent in both business- and technical-speak. She enjoys the collaborative and dynamic nature of agile development, and is most comfortable geeking out in all aspects of analysis and in translating business requirements into technical specs. In her spare time, she teaches yoga and holds a 2nd degree black belt in Tang Soo Do.

David Lim is a business analyst at IGS Energy with a unique background in sales, policy, research, and analysis. He considers himself a “jack-of-all trades” with experience in multiple industries, which has given him a strong capacity for quickly understanding new concepts. David is a graduate of the Ohio State University with a B.S. in Psychology, and he recently completed certification as a Professional Scrum Master. Previously, David acted as a consultant on a large-scale, policy-based disability systems project for the Social Security Administration. Believing that perspective-based experience is real to the user, David works to ensure a holistic systems-user experience whenever possible. At IGS Energy, David has enjoyed learning and working in a space where being agile is expressively encouraged, and continues to pursue innovation and continuous improvement in systems development product management, requirements, business process, and customer experience. As a subscriber to the philosophy behind Agile, David values “just doing what works” in practice.

Robert Melchor recently joined the Improving Enterprises team as a Senior Consultant. He is PMP certified since 2004 and currently working towards his ScrumMaster certification. Robert has several years of Agile experience, working with Gap Inc Direct over the past 6 years where he worked directly with Agile development teams on a couple key initiatives. A believer in the Agile methodology, he’s a member of the local COHAA chapter and loves his life as a family man.