RubyNation Organizers
The Washington DC metropolitan area has one of the largest and most active Ruby communities in the United States, and is the host of several well-organized Ruby user groups. 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) and the Washington DC Ruby Users Group (DCRUG).
Volunteers
Volunteers are unpaid individuals who have selflessly devoted a significant amount of their time and effort to make this high-quality regional conference a reality.
- Chris Bailey - An exceptionally talented graphic artist. Chris produced all of RubyNation's graphic art and our overall theme.
- 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.
- 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.
- Luis de la Rosa - Founder of Happy Apps, specializing in Mac software and custom Mac, iPhone and Ruby on Rails development. He is also a member of NOVARUG and helps organize local Mac development gatherings.
- 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.
- Xandy Johnson - A software engineer with extensive experience in Java, Ruby and Rails. Xandy is the Chief Organizer of the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group, as well as a member of the RubyNation Steering Committee.
- David Keener - A technical architect with over 22 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.
- 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 to advise the RubyNation Steering Committee on the many issues involved in organizing and running a quality conference.