Board of Directors

The PASS Board is comprised of 3 elected executives, elected members-at-large and 4 founding partners. The Board engages Microsoft product teams, developers, technical fellows, MVPs and others to help PASS develop programs, educational content, speakers, and to provide a conduit of user feedback to Microsoft on product feature sets. Microsoft and CA, PASS founding partner members, each contribute one or two senior marketing managers to the PASS Board of Directors.

Call for Nominations is now closed
The Call for Nominations for the 2009/2010 term is now closed. Thank you for your submissions.
Click here to find out all about the 2008 PASS Election, including voting members, timelines, and processes.

PASS Bylaws
The PASS Board of Directors act in accordance with the PASS bylaws. To view the Complete Copy of PASS Bylaws click here.

Executive Board Members

	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, MCDBA, and has received several technical awards from Unisys for database strategies and techniques developed during his tenure at Unisys Healthcare Systems.
	Executive Vice President, Finance and Technology: Rushabh Mehta Rushab is a Mentor for Solid Quality Mentors' global Business Intelligence Division and the Managing Director for Solid Quality India. Rushabh has worked with Microsoft SQL Server since 1998 and has designed and developed BI systems on the Microsoft platform since 2001, including predictive analysis system, health-care analysis solution as well as a multi-terabyte financial decision support system. He has been the lead architect for many large scale and complex business intelligence solutions for clients such as Publix, Raymond James Financials, Jackson Hewitt, and Checkers. Through his work experience, Rushabh has been instrumental in creating multiple best-practices in the implementation of the BI technologies. Rushabh serves on the Board of The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) as the Director of Technology. Rushabh is also a SQL Server MVP and a frequent speaker at large conferences as well as PASS Chapters around the world.
	Vice President, Marketing: 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 the PASS Community 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 sixteen 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 ClearData Consulting, Inc. 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.

Board of Directors-At-Large

	Director, Global Community Development: Greg Low Greg is an internationally recognized consultant and trainer. He holds a PhD from QUT and a host of Microsoft certifications. Greg is the SQL Server practice lead for Readify, a Microsoft Regional Director for Australia, a SQL Server MVP, the co-organizer of CodeCampOz and the organizer of SQL Down Under Code Camp (a PASS related event). Greg also hosts the highly popular SQL Down Under podcast.
	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.
	Director, Program Development: 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.
	Director, Special Interest Groups: Erin Welker Erin Welker is an independent consulting professional whose passion is SQL Server, having worked with the product since version 1.11. Erin's extensive experience includes serving as the Data Warehouse Architect or Lead DBA on several large-scale projects for globally recognized companies. Erin ran the North Texas SQL Server User Group for over a decade, before recently relinquishing the reigns after growing the active membership by a factor of 10. She speaks about SQL Server at various conferences and in webcasts, including PASS Community Summits since 2005. Erin was actively involved in Project REAL, and is the author or a contributing author of various whitepapers, articles and books.
	Director, Special Projects : 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.
	Director, Technical Publications: Chuck Heinzelman Chuck Heinzelman is a Senior Database Administrator with Big Hammer Data - a division of Edgenet, Inc. His primary job responsibilities include database design and implementation and .NET development. He has been working with Microsoft SQL Server since the 7.0 beta days and worked with Oracle and DB2 prior to that. Chuck currently serves on the PASS Board of Directors as the Director of Technical Publications and is a SQL Server MVP. He has been involved with the PASS organization since the fall of 2000, and has spoken at many PASS conferences. He is also a charter member of the Wisconsin SQL Server User Group.
	Director, Volunteers: Pat Wright Pat Wright runs the Salt Lake City SQL Server User group. He is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP and very active in the PASS Community in many different roles, including, Chapters, Membership, and SIGs.

Board of Directors, Founding Partners

	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 the Professional Association of SQL Server Professionals (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.
	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: Roni Karassik Roni Karassik has worked in the Microsoft SQL Server marketing team for 2.5 years. Roni is the Product Manager responsible for SQL Server’s community strategy, partnering with communities to establish dialog and ensure successful and rewarding experiences with SQL Server. Prior to Microsoft, Roni has 3 years of experience as a product development manager in software. She holds a BSc degree from the Technion, in Israel, and an MBA from the Wharton school, in the university of Pennsylvania. Beyond technology, Roni was also a professional athlete, participating in international competitions around the world.

Immediate Past President

Kevin Kline Kevin Kline is the Director of SQL Server Solutions at Quest Software, a leading provider of award winning tools for database management and application monitoring on the SQL Server platform. Kevin is also the Immediate Past President of the international Professional Association for SQL Server and frequently contributes to database technology magazines, web sites, and discussion forums. Kevin's most popular book is “SQL in a Nutshell’ published by O'Reilly & Associates. Kevin is also the author of “Transact-SQL Programming” and three other books on database technologies. Kevin is a top rated speaker, appearing at international conferences like Microsoft TechEd, DevTeach, PASS, Microsoft IT Forum, and SQL Connections. When he's not working, Kevin likes to romance his wife, play with his four kids, write, and garden.