Graham Jones
Stephen Ibaraki
Elias Mereb
Lee Benjamin
Frank V. Tutone
Tim Vander Kooi
Ashwin Kini
Marcos Nogueira
Jamil Lopes
Jay Ferron
Graham Watson
Graham graduated in Chemical Engineering in the UK over 40 years ago. Over those 40 years he has had a very varied career including process plant design, operation and management; Project, Engineering and IT Management; software and web development and teaching windows desktop and Office. Taking a pioneering approach to the use of computers in his engineering work he often solved problems that others had been unable to resolve using more traditional methods. For the past 10+ years he has worked in the IT industry. Helping others has always been a constant whether professionally or via volunteer work. This includes providing free IT services to non-profit organizations such as the Surrey Food Bank , acting as a mentor for S.U.C.C.E.S.S which helps new immigrants to find work in IT in Canada, designing, developing and managing the website for the complex where he lives and acting as President of VANTUG for the past 10 years during which time the user group has grown from 200 to over 1400 members. He is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) in British Columbia, Canada, has passed the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam and achieved the Microsoft MCSD (pre .NET) designation. He is a guest contributor on the Microsoft Canada IT Managers blog and IT Pro blog.
Stephen started working with technology in 1965 and founded one of the first user groups so very much believes in the power of community connection, helping IT professionals managing change, and supporting their career/skills growth. Stephen is the founding Chairman of the Global Board for GITCA, serving in 2008 and 2009 and now serves as a director and advisor on the global board as past chair.
Please read Stephen’s extensive and valuable work in the community at Stephen Ibaraki Profile
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With over 20 years experience in the messaging industry, Lee Benjamin is an expert on Microsoft Exchange and has in-depth experience in a number of other messaging systems. Lee is an MVP for Microsoft Exchange. Since retiring from Microsoft in 1997, he has been a highly sought after consultant for enterprise and medium-sized organizations and software firms. He currently specializes in architecture, migration and upgrade advice. He also evaluates and does product testing and training. Lee is chairman of one of the largest Exchange user groups in the world Exchange Server Boston, and Vice President for Boston User Groups, an umbrella organization of over 50 user groups in the New England Area. Lee has been an analyst at Ferris Research, and is a regular speaker at industry conferences on topics such as data protection, compliance and eDiscovery, messaging security, mobile access and calendaring integration.
Frank was the Managing Director-Finance/HR/Technology for Culminis, Inc. Frank was a Systems Engineering Manager, Marketing Programs Manager and IT Professional for IBM for over 28 years. Starting as a Systems Engineer in the New York Retail Branch Office, he managed accounts such as Macy's, Altman's and ADP. He spent 5 years in the Insurance Industry as a Senior Industry Administrator. He later managed a team of Systems Engineers on the Johnson & Johnson account. He was the senior Marketing Field Liaison for a group called Complementary Products which evaluated outside vendor products that complemented IBM products and marketed them through IBM. In some cases, these products became IBM logo products. His last few years with IBM were spent in the Network Systems and Storage Systems Divisions project managing such products as wireless handhelds and NAS and SAN storage network products. He has been a contributing member of the Carolina IT Professional User’s Group (CITPG) for the past six years.
Tim has worked as an IT Professional in the SMB market for over a decade. Specializing in Microsoft products and building complete solutions from the many options available. He enjoys finding new ways to solve common problems using tools that Microsoft makes available and then sharing those solutions with other Professionals in my community.He has also worked with, and attended, user groups for over 10 years, having helped revive and/or start a number of groups though the years.
Ashwin works as Technical Consultant CNC on JD Edwards / PeopleSoft ERP with M/s Systime Computer Systems Ltd., Mumbai; a division of CMS Ltd. He holds Masters in Computer Applications, Bachelors in Computer Applications, and Diploma in Mechanical Engineering. Awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Windows Server Customer Experience: Networking. He is also a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and an active member of IT Professionals communities and volunteers as President of Mumbai IT Professionals User Group (MumbaiITPro) in Mumbai, India. He has motivated users from as far as Maldives to set up technology User Group and to collaborate globally. He is very good at organizing offline events and conferences / conducting hands on labs and is very passionate about latest technologies and believes in sharing with the community and adding creativity to it. His expertise is the areas of Windows Networking and Virtualization. When in leisure, he enjoys listening to music, watching cricket / WWE and interests in photography. He blogs at: http://www.ashwinkini.com/blog.
Marcos is a Portuguese Microsoft Certified trainer. An Active member of the TechNet Community you will find him frequently as a speaker at Portuguese events where his knowledge of Messaging and Management products is very appreciated. Certified from 2001 his area of expertise is Windows Server System, Security, Messaging and Management.
Ingeniero Jamil Lopes MVP es el especialista en Microsoft Windows Shell/User, hay aproximadamente 170 personas en el mundo de esta especialidad, recibió el Premio Destacados de Microsoft de 2004 a 2008, es Asesor Académico Microsoft, líder del grupo de las células académicas Stardev Brasil, Miembro de la ABES (Asociación Brasileña de Empresas de Software) y IAMCP (International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners International), ha Certificación Internacional Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Novell, SuSE, CA, D-Link y 3COM, tiene formación en Ingeniería Electrónica de Educación, Ingeniería de Sistemas, Matemáticas y Economía, es también el Consultor de Seguridad Nacional y las empresas, las multinacionales y los organismos públicos, cuenta con 18 años de experiencia en tecnología, trabajando en el desarrollo de sistemas, redes y servidores. Presentación de más de 550 mil personas, escribe artículos para diversas comunidades y Diario, en 2005 fue considerado uno de los 10 mejores profesionales TI en Brasil, según el Diario Info Exame.
Link Perfil Microsoft: www.msmvp.com.br/mvp
Principal for Interactive Security Training, LLC. Responsible for various projects that include implementing, training and designing solutions to meet customer’s requirements including security designs, Network infrastructures, enterprise security solutions and Mobility issues. Vendor to Microsoft, Hewitt Packard, and other technology companies, acting as a Subject Matter Expert. Act as consultant with customers on uses of new technologies and infrastructure issues. Develop training and delivered on cutting edge technologies that have included Security, High Performance Clusters, Virtualization and Windows Mobile devices. Customers include Microsoft, Asentus Consulting LLC, Rogers Communications, National Rural Electric Association (NRECA), USMC, Booz Allen Hamilton, and US Air Force. Other customers include banks, government agencies, health agencies and providers.
Graham is the User Group Relationship Manager for Microsoft. Graham first got involved with computers in the seventies, when you could open a door and see each bit with your naked eye. He has worked in the IT industry his entire life, doing everything from changing tapes to writing device drivers. He has worked for Microsoft for over fifteen years, moving from the UK to Redmond in 2000, and is currently part of the team with global responsibility for the relationship between Microsoft and the technical community. Graham is a fellow of the British Computer Society and is a BCS Chartered IT Professional. Graham works with the boards and leaders of associations such as GITCA, INETA, PASS and others to ensure that Microsoft is providing all the help that it can and to take the feedback provided by the user group community back to the people within Microsoft that actually change things. Graham has a blog at http://blogs.technet.com/grahamtwatson.