Brad Abram Baillio

School: University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign
Location: Savoy, Illinois

Brad hails from San Antonio, Texas. He is in his late twenties, is married to an adventurous Theater Major, and has one precious baby girl. Brad is a graduate student at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign. His topic of study is Control, Robotics, and Networked/Embedded Systems.

Nick Baronian

Company: top secret
Location: Richmond, Virginia

Nick Baronian is a Security Administrator for a large media company in the United States. Prior to focusing on security, Nick worked as a Linux Systems Administrator. When not spending time with his family, Nick tries to stay active in the Linux and Security communities.

Hari Boukis

Company: Advertising Magic, Inc.
Location: Walnut Creek, California

Born in Oakland, California, Hari Boukis attended UC Berkeley through the accelerated student program, graduating with a BA in 1989. Hari founded Advertising Magic, Inc. with his [now] wife, Rosalind in 1991 out of a spare bedroom in their home. Sixteen years later, Advertising Magic has 8 employees and is based out of Walnut Creek, California. Hari's business has been named "Top 100 Women-owned Businesses" in the San Francisco Bay Area nine years in a row.

Steve Case

Company: Engineering Design Team (EDT)
Location: Beaverton, Oregon

Steve Case started out in computing as a graduate student in plant ecology at the University of North Carolina. As he struggled with finding an interesting thesis topic he found himself mostly interested in the nuts and bolts of computer programming, so he switched gears and started writing software for a living.

In 1987 Steve went to work on Unix-based image-processing systems. He started using Linux about 1996, first for fun at home, then at work as it became more popular. In 1998 Steve went to work at Engineering Design Team, where he's been working ever since writing device drivers and libraries for high-speed interface boards for Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

Steve lives in Beaverton, Oregon with his wife and three children.

Kalyana Krishna Chadalavada

Company: HPC Systems, Inc.
Location: Fremont, California

Kalyana Krishna Chadalavada has a bachelors degree in computer science and engineering. He has worked in the field of high performance computing for six years. Kalyana has helped develop PARAM series of supercomputers at C-DAC, India and later worked on developing HPC clusters solutions and parallel file systems for Dell. He now works as Director, Systems & Technology at HPC Systems where his focus is on customer centric enterprise solutions, performance modeling and forward looking technologies.

Kalyana's passions include travel, electronic games and books.

Caleb S. Cullen

Company: Netprophets.com
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Starting in 1997, Caleb worked in Silicon Valley, Seattle and Amsterdam in various roles. He's worked as a UNIX/Linux systems administrator, a Perl scripter, and a web service infrastructure architect. Linux has been his primary personal operating system for 14 years, from Slackware v0.9 in 1993 to Ubuntu today. Apart from computing, he enjoys gardening, jazz and yoga.

Caleb, who holds a diploma in Culinary Arts and a bachelors degree in Psychology, recently relocated to Toronto where he lives with his husband, Daniel, and codes Ruby for a local startup.

Keir Davis

Company: Xtern Software, Inc.
Location: Greensboro, North Carolina

Keir Davis was first exposed to programming at the age of twelve, when his father brought home a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Keir has been programming ever since and now holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Today, Keir is the president of Xtern Software, which provides custom software development services to manufacturers around the world. Keir is also a co-author of The Definitive Guide To Linux Network Programming from Apress.

Adam M. Dutko

Company Name: top secret
Location: Lakewood, Ohio

Adam Dutko lives in Ohio with his wonderful wife, two dogs and two cats. He works for a Fortune 500 company as a Linux Systems Administrator and hopes to one day be a teacher and part-time OpenSource consultant/writer.

In Adam's free-time he tinkers with various programming projects, helps maintain a few RPM files for Fedora, brews beer, programs an electronic radio show at 89.3 WCSB called "Machine Code", and works at the Cleveland State University (CSU) Software Engineering Lab on embedded systems and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). His personal site is located at http://littlehat.homelinux.org:8000.

Michael Eager

Company: Eager Consulting
Location: Palo Alto, California

For more than thirty years, Michael Eager has worked on development tools (compilers, assemblers, linkers, debuggers and simulators) for systems ranging from tiny microprogrammed processors to large mainframes systems. He's worked for semiconductor companies National Semiconductor and AMD, Linux distributors MontaVista and Wind River, as well as embedded system tools developer Microtec Research. Today, Michael heads his own company, Eager Consulting, which focuses on development tools for embedded systems.

Michael has participated on several standards committees, including C++ and TIS, and is chair of the DWARF Debugging Format Standards Committee. When not fixing bugs, he's taking landscape photos or puttering with woodworking tools.

Nick Faltys

Company: top secret
Location: San Diego, CA

Nick Faltys is an Electrical Engineer from the University of Nebraska. He's been working with Linux for elevn years. During this time, he has written code for various open source projects and volunteered to administer websites for a few selected non-profit organizations.

Ken Firestone

Company: FirestoneNet
Location: Takoma Park, Maryland

Ken Firestone discovered Unix in grad school, and he has been using Linux since the kernel 0.9x days. He has worked as a web programmer/developer and a systems administrator. Ken prefers emacs to vi.

Ken lives in Takoma Park, Maryland with his wife Barbara, cat Ben and dog Jake.

Dennis Franklin Frey

Military Branch: U.S. Navy
Location: Bremerton, Washington

Dennis Frey is a 1971 graduate of Kansas State University with Bachelors degrees in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration. Dennis has worked for Western Electric, General Electric, Westinghouse and Hughes Aircraft before his current job as a U.S. Navy civil servant where his main focus is hardware test programming (and where they're beginning to port Linux).

Dennis began following Linux in the mid 1990s and subscribed to Linux Journal in time to catch the January 1995 issue #9. His hobbies include bicycling and kayaking as well as Linux.

Victor Gregorio

Company: Penguin Computing
Location: San Francisco, California

With 13 years of experience with UNIX, Victor Gregorio is a System Administrator and QA Engineer for Penguin Computing. When not typing at a computer, he can be found playing with his cameras or eating cheese and olives. Feedback is welcome at victor@hacktux.com.

Kristian Erik Hermansen

Company: FOX Interactive Media (News Corp.)
Location: San Francisco, California

Kristian Erik Hermansen is a security and open source specialist. He currently holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. While not hacking computers, you may find him playing guitar, drums, or the ukulele.

Philip Jacob

Company: StyleFeeder
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Phil Jacob is a software architect, technology consultant and veteran of several Boston-area startups. Phil founded StyleFeeder, a personal shopping engine that uses fancy collaborative filtering algorithms to help people shop online. Previously, he has consulted for companies like Digitas, Fidelity, Schwab, Data General, 3M (and several e-commerce and community sites that never quite became household names).

Jay Kruizenga

Company: freelance writer
Location: Allendale, Michigan

Jay Kruizena, a former U.S. Marine with a degree in marketing, is a freelance writer and Linux evangelist.

David A. Lane

Company: top secret
Location: Manassas, Virginia

Born in Toronto, Canada, David Lane's dad was involved with technology from telephone to the early days of the personal computer. It was only natural that he would go into geography. As he points out, there are not a lot of jobs in the U.S. for geographers, so he wound up selling clothes. A short stint with a company belonging to one of my customers and he found his home in IT. David started with SlackWare back in the early 1990s, picked up the O'Reilly distribution of what was the first Red Hat and the rest is history.

Since then, David has integrated Linux into NetWare, Windows and Unix environments and vice versa, working from single monster machines to purpose built systems from clustered web services to DNS to basic file and print.

If David has a specialty, it is making "other" operating systems work and integrate with Linux, including Oracle (since version 8) and Windows. He is a networker more than a programmer and has read more readmes and integrated more oddball code than he could begin to recount.

Currently David is employed by a defense contractor working in a large federal agency.

Steve Marquez

Company: Critical RN Nursing Services
Location: Littleton, Colorado

Steve Marquez is an Emergency Department Registered Nurse in a Denver area Level 2 Trauma Center. He is an all around general geek who is often called upon by his friends and colleagues to solve their computing issues, often only by successfully searching the internet. He runs Critical RN Nursing Services which provides staffing services to area medical facilities.

In the past, Steve has used Linux, FreeBSD or OpenBSD on the desktop since 1997. Prior to that, he used OpenSTEP on the NeXT platform. He currently uses Mac OS X, because of its ease of use and 'nix underpinnings.

Happily married and father of two small children, Steve feels obligated to raise a new generation of free thinkers by exploring Linux once again with his children by installing Edubuntu on an old P3 750 Mhz notebook.

His hobbies include brewing beer and vintage audio.

Dave McAllister

Company: Adobe Systems, Inc
Location: San Jose, California

As director, standards and open source, for the Platform and Developer Business Unit at Adobe Systems, Dave McAllister is focused on the company¹s long-term strategic direction as it relates to leveraging standards and open-source technologies to differentiate Adobe.

Dave joined Adobe in 2007. Prior to joining Adobe, he founded Open Source Business Technologies, a consultancy that helps venture capital firms understand the commercial opportunities created by open-source technologies. Before starting his own firm, he co-founded software maker Cassatt Corp. Earlier in his career, he served as vice president and general manager of NEC¹s server business in the U.S, and as strategic technologist for Egenera. Dave also had a lengthy stint at Silicon Graphics where he was instrumental in bringing Linux into SGI as a core technology.

In his non-existent free time, Dave takes photos, dabbles in gardening and cooks up a mean chili.

Craig Oda

Company: Page One PR
Location: Palo Alto, California

Craig Oda is a former Internet and Linux entrepreneur who was active in Japan and the US from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. He was a co-founder and president of the first public-access ISP in Japan as well as of the Tokyo Linux Users Group. Many in the Linux community remember Craig as the first US employee of Turbolinux, an international Linux company that raised $96 million at the turn of century. At Turbolinux he managed strategic alliances, product marketing and product management. Later, Craig moved on to manage sales and marketing for SWsoft and the Virtuozzo Linux virtualization project.

Today Craig works as a public relations consultant in Silicon Valley with around a dozen open source companies.

Rob Orsini

Company: Tuple Shop, Inc.
Location: San Francisco, Californiaa

Rob Orsini is the author of the Rails Cookbook (O'Reilly). He's also the founder and CEO of Tuple Shop, Inc., a web software consulting company specializing in Rails and Python. Previously, Rob was webmaster at Industrial Light & Magic (a Lucasfilm company), and software engineer at O'Reilly Media. Rob has been programming the web since the late nineties, and enjoys the leading edge of development with dynamic languages such as Ruby and Python. Additionally, Rob is a jazz musician, a builder, and a loving husband and father.

Jeffrey D. Parent

Company: Emerson Process Management
Location: Marshalltown, Iowa

Jeffrey Parent has a BS in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University and is currently working on Masters in Computer Engineering (also at Iowa State). He is currently working for Emerson Process Management's Remote Automation Solutions Division on development with the Foundation Fieldbus Protocol and Linux Operating System.

Jeffrey is a member of the Ames Free Unix Group and the Iowa State Information Assurance Student Group.

When Jeff is not working he enjoys golfing, downhill skiing, and playing bass guitar. He also has studied Martial Arts for 15 years and has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

Wayne D. Powel, Ph.D.

Company: Saint Francis University
Location: Loretto, Pennsylvania

Dr. Powel came to Saint Francis from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington where he served as Associate Vice President for Information Technology.

Dr. Powel earned his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Arizona in 1989. He began his undergraduate studies at Miami Dade Community College, earning an Associate of Arts Degree, and completed his undergraduate studies when he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from New Mexico Highlands University.

He has had considerable experience in higher education moving through the faculty ranks in the psychology department at Gonzaga to Associate Professor; serving as department chair for three years; serving as an academic administrator, including four years as Associate Academic Vice President and two years as Acting Academic Vice President; to his most recent position.

Dr. Powel established an excellent record as a faculty member and administrator at Gonzaga. He was nominated as teacher of the year in 1996. He has maintained a record of research and publication. His early works were published in journals including Child Study Journal and the Journal of Psychology. His more recent works are in his administrative area and published in journals of Educause, a professional information technology organization. He has applied for and received grants.

As Vice President of Academic Affairs at Saint Francis University, Dr. Powel is the chief academic officer responsible to the President of the University, for direct supervision of all academic programs, undergraduate and graduate.

Shawn Powers

Company: Inland Lakes Schools
Location: Indian River, Michigan

Shawn Powers is a geeky Technology Director for a small school in northern Michigan. He did manage to find a wife to love him, and has 3 wonderful daughters. His wife even watches Star Trek with him, but he suspects it's just because she loves him. Email him at shawn@brainofshawn.com

Mike Roberts

Company: top secret
Location: Palm Harbor, Florida

Mike Roberts will be in his silver anniversary of marriage in 2008. He has two grown children, one of them married. He has been involved with technology since the late 1970's when his career began with the US Air Force. He has worked for a variety of companies including ComputerVision, Zollner Pistons and Honeywell. Positions held include Field Service Engineer, Plant Electrical Engineer's Assistant, CAD/CAM/CAT Manger, Systems Administrator and Developer. Today he is lead engineer on an internal software development project for a large corporation.

Mike is a music, automobile and aviation enthusiast but not a musician, race car driver or pilot. Now that his children are grown he's toying with the notion of pursuing one or more of the above.

Draciron Smith

Company: self-employed
Location: Lubbock, Texas

Draciron Smith is a fanatical Linux enthusiast with seventeen years of IT experience working for places such as NASA, IBM, and Walmart as a programer, DBA and system administrator. Among all the papers he decorates his wall with, his CISSP is the one he is proudest of. Musician, composer and writer are other things he is called by most. At least printable names, he points out.

Draciron is involved with several OSS projects including Fedora documentation. He currently does freelance network administration/security and DBA contracts to pay the bills. Father of at least two children.

Chris D. Stark

Company: University of Hawai‘i at Ma-noa College of Education
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii

Chris D. Stark has been an IT professional at the University of Hawai‘i since 1994. In his current position with the College of Education, Mr. Stark helps to introduce future educators to free and open source software, and he has built the college's network infrastructure based entirely on GNU/Linux. He has run GNU/Linux as his primary desktop operating system since the late 1990s, and flirts with both Fedora and Ubuntu.

Outside of the realm of IT, Mr. Stark explores his creativity as a composer and musician, but he also enjoys programming and web design, digital photography, and long-board surfing. He will be graduating in the spring of 2008 with a M.Ed. in Educational Technology.

Patrick Swartz

Company: First Data
Location: Bellevue, Nebraska

Patrick Swartz is a Systems Engineer for First Data, responsible for the support and developing of the use of Linux within the company. Patrick focuses on finding ways to interoperate Linux within the existing Unix/Windows environment.

In Patrick's off-time, he spends time with his wife and four children (ages 9,8,5,3) while also working on his MBA degree.