www.sqlpass.org    Professional Association for SQL Server
  Search

Board of Directors

The PASS Board of Directors is comprised of a four-member Executive Committee, elected Directors-at-Large, and four founding partner representatives. The Board engages Microsoft product teams, developers, technical fellows, MVPs, and others to help PASS develop programs, educational content, and speakers, and to provide a conduit of user feedback to Microsoft on product feature sets. Microsoft and CA, PASS founding partner members, each contributes one or two senior marketing managers to the PASS Board of Directors.

PASS Bylaws

The PASS Board of Directors acts in accordance with the PASS Bylaws. To view the complete copy of PASS Bylaws, click here.

2010/2011 Executive Committee

Rushabh Mehta President: Rushabh Mehta
Rushabh is a Business Intelligence Mentor with Solid Quality Mentors and the Managing Director for Solid Quality India Pvt. Ltd. Rushabh has worked with Microsoft SQL Server since 1998 and has designed and developed BI systems on the Microsoft platform since 2001, including a predictive analysis system, a health-care analysis solution, and a multi-terabyte financial decision support system. He has been the lead architect for many large-scale and complex BI solutions for clients such as Publix, Raymond James Financials, Jackson Hewitt, US Dept. of Defense and Microsoft. Through his work experience, Rushabh has been instrumental in creating multiple best practices in the implementation of BI technologies. Rushabh is also a SQL Server MVP and a frequent speaker at large conferences and PASS Chapters around the world. You can read his blog at www.sqlblog.com.
Bill Graziano Executive Vice President, Finance and Technology: Bill Graziano
An active member of PASS since 2001, Bill currently serves on the Board of Directors, where he is responsible for the overall marketing for PASS and PASS Summit. Bill co-founded SQLTeam.com, a web site for SQL Server developers and database administrators. In addition to managing the site, he writes articles and helps users with their most vexing problems. An involved participant in the SQL Server community for seven years, Bill was recognized as a SQL Server MVP in 2004 and still holds that designation. He has 16 years' experience as a database developer and DBA and has worked directly with SQL Server for the past seven years. Bill is a partner in scaleSQL Consulting, which specializes in SQL Server database administration and application development. In his little remaining time, he enjoys sailing, hiking, and photography in flat, land-locked Kansas.
Rick Heiges Vice President, Marketing: Rick Heiges
Rick Heiges is a Sr. Solutions Consultant with Scalability Experts working with customers on solutions within the SQL Server environment and educating users on SQL Server 2005 by speaking at user groups, conferences, labs, and road shows across the USA, Europe, and Africa. He holds an MBA and a M.S. in MIS as well as a B.S. in Computer Science. In addition, he also has attained MCTS:SQL2005 and MCITP:DBA certifications. Rick has held a wide array of roles throughout his career including professor, developer, trainer, database administrator, and project manager/leader. Rick has been involved with PASS since the spring of 2001 and started up an Official PASS SQL Server user group in North Carolina as well as authoring several articles for the PASS technical journal, The SQL Server Standard. Rick has served on the PASS Board of Directors since January 2003. You can read his blog at www.sqlblog.com.
Wayne Snyder Immediate Past President: Wayne Snyder
Wayne Snyder has been a database administrator for development, production, and support environments since 1981. As a Managing Consultant for Mariner in Charlotte, NC, he provides information solutions to businesses using business intelligence tools and techniques. He has been using SQL Server since its first release and is a SQL Server MVP. His credits include articles for several magazines and a 35 video and CD training series for Learnkey. Snyder is also an MCT, MCSE, and MCDBA and has received several technical awards from Unisys for database strategies and techniques developed during his tenure at Unisys Healthcare Systems.

2010 Directors-At-Large

Cristoph Stotz Director, EMEA: Christoph Stotz
Christoph Stotz is Chief Technical Officer of oh22systems GmbH, a German Microsoft Certified Partner providing infrastructural services and developing mobile solutions. Christoph has been working with SQL Server since 1997 and has initiated and co-founded the German SQL Server user group. His major focus with SQL Server is performance tuning and .NET development.
Lynda Rab Director: Lynda Rab
Lynda Rab is an IT professional with over 15 years of technical experience. She has been working with SQL Server since version 4.2 and is now focusing her efforts on data warehousing working for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. A PASS volunteer since 2001, Lynda has worked her way up the volunteer ladder to the PASS Board of Directors. Along the way, she received the PASSion award for "leadership in fostering the overall growth and prosperity for the Professional Association for SQL Server." This year, as PASS Program Director she is working on implementing an improved abstract-submission process and Speaker Resource Center. One of next year's goals will be to improve how PASS cultivates and develops new PASS speakers. Active in her local SQL Server community, she is a member of the OttawaSQL.net chapter leader team. Lynda lives in Ottawa, Canada, with her husband and young son.
Douglas Mcdowell Director: Douglas McDowell
Douglas McDowell is the CEO, North America, for Solid Quality Mentors. He is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP, an MCT, MCTS, MCSE, MCDBA, and serves as the Director of Technology as well as the Director of Global Chapters on the Board of Directors for PASS. He is an author and contributing editor for SQL Server Magazine. Douglas completed his MBA at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business and also holds a Masters of Information Technology and a degree in Culinary Arts. Douglas is a passionate speaker about the value of Business Intelligence realized through successful architectures and implementations.
Andy Warren Director: Andy Warren
Andy Warren is the President of Fourdeuce Inc., an Orlando-based company whose holdings include End to End Training and JumpstartTV. Andy is also the current President of the Orlando SQL Server User Group and the chair of the SQLSaturday event concept. Andy has worked with SQL Server for more than 10 years, going back to SQL 6.5, and has also worked as a developer and an IT Director. In 2008, he was selected as a SQL Server MVP.
Thomas LaRock Director: Thomas LaRock
Thomas LaRock is a seasoned IT professional with over a decade of technical and management experience. Currently serving as a Senior DBA for Confio Software, Thomas has progressed through several roles in his career including programmer, analyst, and DBA. He holds a MS degree in Mathematics from Washington State University and is a member of the Usability Professional’s Association. LaRock currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), and is also a SQL Server MVP. Thomas can also be found blogging at http://thomaslarock.com and is the author of DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA (http://dbasurvivor.com).
Jeremiah Peschka Director: Jeremiah Peschka
Jeremiah is a SQL Server developer in the Columbus, OH area with HMB Information System Developers. Jeremiah has broad IT experience in systems administration, web design, application development, and database development spread across diverse platforms. In his current role, Jeremiah specializes in developing solutions based on the SQL Server platform. Jeremiah is currently the Group Leader for CBusPASS, the Columbus chapter of PASS, and the Group Leader for the PASS Application Development Virtual Chapter. Additionally, Jeremiah serves on several committees within PASS and is an active community member, speaking at several local user groups and conferences. You can read his blog at http://facility9.com.
 

Director: Brian Moran
Brian Moran has been an active member of the SQL Server community for almost 20 years and is currently a Managing Director and Co-Founder of Solid Quality Mentors. Brian is part of the core leadership team that has helped grow SolidQ to an 8-figure global enterprise with more than 100 Mentors in more than 20 countries around the world. Brian was on the founding PASS Board of Directors a decade ago, was one of the world’s first SQL Server MVP’s serving for 13 years, has spoken about performance tuning topics around the world, and has been a key contributor and editor for SQL Server Magazine since its founding issue.

Board of Directors, Founding Partners

Rick Bolesta CA: Richard (Rick) Bolesta
Rick Bolesta is the Vice President of development for CA’s Distributed Database Management solutions. He has extensive experience in relational database technologies and is an author and speaker on database and performance topics. He currently serves on the board of directors for PASS and served as the senior board advisor to the International DB2 User Group (IDUG) from 2000 to 2004. Richard earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Northern Illinois University and his MBA from the University of Illinois.
Neil Buchwalter CA: Neil Buchwalter
Neil Buchwalter is the Product Manager for CA's ERwin® Modeling products. He has been involved with databases for more than 20 years and currently is responsible for defining product strategy, direction and messaging for CA ERwin® Modeling. Neil’s interest in modeling began during the early days of hand-drawn models and solidified while at James Martin Associates, where he co-authored the Construction Handbook of the Information Engineering Methodology™. Shortly after joining Logic Works in 1996, he began to focus on data model construction and consulting projects related to the predecessors of the CA’s.
Microsoft, Business Platform Division Director: Mark A. Souza
Mark Souza is a Director in the Microsoft Business Platform Division.  He heads up all customer and ISV programs for the Microsoft Data, Storage and Application Server platform.  His teams specialize in implementing the most challenging customer database applications worldwide.  Mr. Souza’s team is responsible for ensuring high quality product releases through implementation experiences with world class customer mission critical application deployments. Mr. Souza has twenty seven years in the Information Technology business. He has a Masters Degree in MIS from Marist College and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from SUNY Potsdam.  He enjoys spending quality time with his wife Lisa of 24 years and three beautiful children (Andrew 16 Megan 14 and Jennifer 12).  He also enjoys flying airplanes, reading, running,  sports and attending broadway shows in his spare time.
Kristina Kerr Microsoft, Group Product Manager: Kevin Yam
As a Product Manager in the SQL Server marketing group at Microsoft Corporation, Kevin is responsible for technical training/certification programs and Community outreach, which includes Microsoft’s participation in the PASS Summit conference.  Kevin previously worked with databases for several years, including a 5-year stint as a DBA at Starbucks Coffee Company.  He returned to school to pursue a MBA at Cornell University and upon graduation in 2007 started working at Microsoft Corporation.  Kevin is excited to work closely with PASS to grow and educate the SQL Server community.

 

The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) is an independent, not-for-profit association, dedicated to supporting, educating, and promoting the Microsoft SQL Server community. From local user groups and special interest groups (SIGs) to webcasts and the annual PASS Community Summit � the largest gathering of SQL Server professionals in the world � PASS enables knowledge sharing, in-depth learning, access to the Microsoft SQL Server team, and the ability to influence the direction of SQL Server technologies. PASS was founded in 1999 by Microsoft and CA and continues to enjoy executive level endorsement from both organizations. As the number one user community for Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft looks to the PASS community for valued feedback, input, and inspiration. PASS Mission Empower the global Microsoft SQL Server community to connect, share, learn and be inspired through networking, knowledge sharing, peer-based learning, and the ability to influence the direction of Microsoft SQL Server products and services.