I would like to introduce the new Northwest Arkansas .Net user group board members for 2009.  The sales revenue from each of the board member’s company totals to $787 billion.   Which is just over the $700 billion that congress passed for the banking bailout.  We are definitely not in any crises to need multi-billion dollars, but this board will work hard to create a user group that is more valuable to our .Net communities than billions of dollars.

Next year we will continue to add value to the user group that Jay Smith and Randy Walker have developed before us.  The user group continues to grow and each meeting we see new people.  The value comes with the growth of the user group.  This growth is both by member count but more importantly the develop of the member’s passion and knowledge.  In a email Robby sent me he stated “If we can increase our size, we can increase our collective knowledge by sharing, and encouraging others to share their knowledge and experiences.” which sums up the value a user group will continue to provide.

So I really look forward to next year and the opportunism we have.  Over the next few months I will be working with each board member to create the goals for meeting our vision.  I hope to be able to share these goals with everyone very soon.  Please help me congratulate our new board members. 

President Zachariah Young is a Filenet solution architect at J.B. Hunt.  He is responsible for evangelizing and developing solution for enterprise content management and business process management.  This role requires knowledge in several different areas of technologies like .Net, Java and Sql Server.  He continually looks for ways to improve his knowledge in all areas of technology.  He has served as vice president and treasurer of the user group.  As treasurer he worked to get the group setup with the 501(c)3 status.  Then as vice-president he work to relocate the user group meetings to the Jones Center.  This will allow the user group to grow even bigger in the future.   Currently he is focused on creating virtual user groups.  Zach has a finance degree from the University of Arkansas and has been in the technology field since 2000.

Vice President: John Oswalt is a Lead Developer/Analyst for Tyson Foods, Inc. based in Springdale, AR and a Microsoft Certified Professional in ASP.NET. He is currently the treasure of the Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group. He has over 10 years experience in developing websites and applications. His passions for language include HTML, CSS, ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, SQL, JavaScript, and many others. He is the owner of a few different types of blogs on the internet (Technology – letsblogabout.net) and (Sports – www.callthehogs.com).

Treasurer: Robby Gregory is a Programmer Analyst in the Information Systems Division for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.  He currently works on the Sustainability and Reputation Management team where he develops internal and external .NET web applications in C#.  Lately, Robby has been focusing on using client-side code to help develop more loosely coupled applications. Robby has a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Computer Information Science and a minor in General Business.  He currently lives in Bentonville, Ar.

Secretary: Tim Tyrrell is a Programmer Analyst for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in Bentonville, AR.  Prior to December 2006, he lived in Chicago and was last seen as a java web developer.  Tim currently works on the Sustainability and Reputation Management team where he develops ASP.NET/C# solutions for the Wal-Mart Home Office, lately adding jQuery and JSON Web Services to the mix.  He has a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Illinois College and a Master of Information Systems Management with a concentration in Electronic Commerce from DeVry University's Keller Graduate School of Management.

So please help me welcome our new officers for 2009.

NWADNUG