Rob Cooper
Rob Cooper is a Test Lead on the Access team at Microsoft. He started at Microsoft as a support engineer in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1998 and joined the Access 2003 test team in Redmond in 2001. During the Access 2007 release, he led the security efforts across the test team and worked on several new features including disabled mode, database encryption, Office Trust Center, and sorting, grouping, and totals. Rob also led efforts around the Access object model and continues to provide direction around programmability and security in Access.

A long-time fan of Access, Rob is a frequent speaker at the Seattle Access Group and PNWADG meetings and has written for the Microsoft Knowledge Base and Access Advisor. Aside from writing code in Access and C#, he also enjoys spending time with his family watching movies, going to the zoo and aquarium, and hanging out in and around Seattle.

Co-Author of several Microsoft Access books, including Expert Access 2007 Programming (Programmer to Programmer) and Access 2007 VBA Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer).

Alison Balter
Alison Balter is a leading author of Microsoft Access books and SQL Server books, including Alison Balter’s Mastering Access 2007 Development, Teach Yourself SQL Server 2005 Express in 24 Hours, a developer video training series on Access 2007, a user video training series on Access 2007, and three Access 2007 e-books, all for SAMS Publishing. She is currently in the process of authoring Access 2010 books and videos, also for SAMS Publishing.

Alison is a highly experienced developer and independent trainer. She loves to take highly technical material and explain it in a way that everyone can understand. Alison develops applications using Access, SharePoint, .NET and SQL Server. She specializes in teaching others how to develop Windows and Web applications. During her 23 years in the computer industry, she has trained and consulted many people in corporations and government agencies, including Southern California Edison, Shell Oil, and Cisco. Published Book List

Kevin Bell
Armed with an Architectural Engineering degree, Kevin began his career in Melbourne Australia working for an illumination engineering firm.  While there, he started modernizing the company’s testing reports using Microsoft Excel.  Excel offered a rich presentation layer, but it wasn’t very efficient at managing large amounts of data. Databases at the time lacked graphical capabilities and Microsoft’s newly released Visual Basic lacked database support.  Then Access arrived, combining the best elements of all three, and his world changed forever.

Returning to Colorado, Kevin joined a consulting practice, and started specialized in building software solutions for small business with Excel and Access.   Over the next decade, they created custom applications for companies and organizations ranging in size from a handful of users to hundreds of user in multiple locations. In 2008, after a 15 year consulting career, Kevin joined Microsoft and the Access test team as a Test Engineer.

Over the years Kevin has been a member, officer and frequent presenter at the Denver Area Access User Group and now regularly attends both the Seattle Access User Group and the Pacific Northwest Access Developers Group.  He is thrilled to have been invited to speak at the 2010 Portland Database Designers Conference.