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RubyNation Organizers
The Washington DC metropolitan area has one of the largest and most active Ruby communities in the United States. The RubyNation Conference is staffed by volunteers from this extensive Ruby community, drawn primarily from the membership of the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group (NovaRUG).
The List
Our organizers are unpaid volunteers who have selflessly devoted a significant amount of their time and effort to make this high-quality regional conference a reality.
- Don Anderson - A software engineer, multi-media designer and 3D animator who is currently the lead Flash architect for Grab Networks. Don has over 17 years of experience using computers to create art and has developed projects using a wide range of platforms and languages. His current home online is www.gone3d.com. He created the 2009 graphics for Rubynation.
- Chris Bailey - An exceptionally talented graphic artist. Chris produced all of RubyNation's 2008 graphic art, as well as the look-and-feel of the RubyNation web site.
- David Bock - A Principal Consultant at CodeSherpas, a consultancy specializing in Java and Ruby software development. Mr. Bock is also the President of the Northern Virginia Java Users Group, the Editor of O'Reilly's OnJava.com web site, and a frequent speaker on technology in venues such as the No Fluff, Just Stuff Software Symposiums.
- Luc Castera - Luc is currently the lead-developer behind ShareMeme.com and has held positions at Verizon, GE, and Delphi Electronics. He has used many different languages and platforms such as Java, Tcl/Tk, C, Ruby, and C#/.NET throughout his career. He discovered Ruby two years ago and has been a big fan ever since. Luc received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Virginia before attending Georgia Tech to obtain his Masters degree in the same field. Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he now lives in the DC Metropolitan area.
- Navjeet Chabbewal - A software engineer with extensive experience in Java/J2EE, Ruby and Rails and open source tools. Navjeet is a member of the NovaRUG and NovaJUG user groups.
- Karen Gillison - A co-founder of CodeSherpas, a consultancy specializing in Java and Ruby software development. Karen is a member of the RubyNation Steering Committee.
- Gray Herter - A software engineer and trainer with over 25 years of experience, most of it developing and mentoring others in a variety of object-oriented languages, including C++, SNAP, Java, and currently JRuby and Rails. Gray is the Chief Organizer of the Northern Virginia Java Users Group, as well as the Chairman of the RubyNation Steering Committee. Gray teaches Ruby and Rails classes regularly in Reston.
- David Keener - A technical architect for Grab Networks, the second largest supplier of online news clips in the United States. Dave has over 23 years of experience, specializing in Ruby, Rails and Java. He is a frequent public speaker, and is involved in the NovaRUG, NovaJUG and DCRUG user groups. David is a member of the RubyNation Steering Committee. He also blogs regularly on technical subjects at KeenerTech.com.
- Russ Olsen - A software engineer, trainer and public speaker with a background in Java, Ruby and Rails. He is the author of Design Patterns in Ruby. Russ is a member of the RubyNation Steering Committee.
- Arild Shirazi - A software engineer with a background in Java EE and Rails, and former protein biochemist. He is responsible for the design of the RubyNation web site, and is a member and host of the NovaRUG, NovaJUG and MacDev user groups.
Note: This is by no means an exhaustive list of our volunteers. We will be adding our many other volunteers as we get biographical information for them.
Contributors
- Chad Fowler - A well-known writer, consultant, trainer and speaker in the Ruby community. He is the author of Rails Recipes, an influential and widely read technical book. He is also a well-known conference organizer; his blog entry on conference organization was a major influence on the formation of the RubyNation Conference.
- Jim Freeze - The Chief Organizer of the Lone Star Ruby Conference, an annual regional conference held in Austin, Texas. Jim Freeze generously donated his time in 2008 to advise the RubyNation Steering Committee on the many issues involved in organizing and running a quality conference.
- Rich Kilmer - A nationally known Ruby advocate from our local Ruby community. His early speaker commitment and encouragement really got this conference off the ground in a big way last year.
- Xandy Johnson - A local Ruby advocate and co-founder of both the NovaRUG and this conference. Xandy's efforts to start the NovaRUG and run it for a number of years really helped form the community to the point to where the RubyNation conference could be successful.