Meet the Finalists of 2009's Exceptional DBA Awards

Stuart Cianos

Chuck Lathrope

Raymond Laubert

Josef Richberg

Alex Rosa

Stuart Cianos

I am a software developer, database administrator and project manager with over 12 years experience in public service, education and healthcare. My passion is the application of technology to measurably reduce the impact of complex social problems in the communities I serve. My aim is to demonstrate that innovation in information technology positively impacts the lives of those most in need. I administer specialised clinical systems at Santa Clara County's Valley Medical Center, the regional safety net hospital and Level 1 trauma center serving the greater Silicon Valley metropolitan area in Northern California. I provide support for databases which expedite patient care in numerous departments in a heterogeneous environment featuring Microsoft SQL, Ingres, and Oracle. Prior to becoming a database administrator and project manager with Valley Medical Center, I was the lead developer and database administrator for the Sequoia Union High School District in San Mateo County, California. I spearheaded the modernisation of the district's database architecture as well as the development of Communicado, a comprehensive and secure educational portal serving students, teachers and parents.

Why Stuart thinks he should win

I collaborate with other database administrators in the San Francisco Bay Area and am well known for my generosity of time and effort. By promoting the proactive development and administration of systems which have a direct impact on the lives of patients and children, I help foster innovation in healthcare and educational technology under exceedingly difficult budgetary constraints. These innovations demonstrate the positive effects of maintaining robust database administration skill sets within public service organizations: improved access to and processing of information, enhanced service delivery, increased return on investment, and a well rounded information management strategy.

Chuck Lathrope

I am currently working for Demand Media as a Sr. Database Administration Manager supporting 100+ database servers, 1000+ databases, dev, staging, build, and production environments that get upwards of 10 million hits a day. I do all this with just one other DBA whom I manage.

I graduated in Civil Engineering and was a computer administrator for 13 years before I worked for Microsoft IT supporting 10,000+ SharePoint sites with experts Joel Olsen and Mike Watson. I have spent the past 6 years in enterprise environments developing and administrating SQL, SharePoint, and Windows servers. I believe in giving back my knowledge to the community, so I blog solutions on my website www.sqlwebpedia.com, answer questions on forums, email my team, and/or educate other teams in our company.

Why Chuck thinks he should win

I think it is an honor to be nominated as one of the finalists for the Exceptional DBA Awards. It is not often that I get to toot my own horn, but I thought that this award was a great opportunity to possibly speak in front of my peers in the DBA world at this year’s PASS conference. There are few DBAs I know that can do the range of work I have done in the past decade, from engineering structured cabling systems for a high-tech hospital with 3D imagery tools to explaining the importance of disk alignment and cluster sizes for optimal disk IO performance to SAN engineers . Being a team player, I am often grabbing key people from other teams to solve issues critical to our employer in a proactive manner. With an optimistic can do attitude, I think of all my fellow employees as customers, and I am there to serve them, whether it is providing them rights to a database table or migrating most of our servers to SQL 2008!

Raymond Laubert

I am currently working with E&E Consulting on contract to Giesinger Medical as a Database Architect on a project to develop a data warehouse to track medical treatments for the State of Pennsylvania. I have over 11 years of experience with relational databases starting with Oracle 7 as an application developer then moving to MS SQL Server 6.0.  I am currently working with MS SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, Oracle 10g and MySQL 5.x.

I am also a Microsoft Certified Trainer specializing in SQL Server courses ranging from development to business intelligence. I love teaching and find satisfaction in 'watching the light come on' when my students finally understand a complex aspect of SQL Server. I hold several different certifications including Microsoft Certified Database Administrator, Microsoft Certified System Engineer, Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional and Oracle Certified Professional and am an active member in numerous forums and blogs including SQLServerCentral.com, SQLTeam.com and many Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn groups.

Why Raymond thinks he should win

As a trainer my knowledge and skills go beyond that of most companies' DBAs. I have the knowledge and skill to solve the issues my students present, which often go well beyond the realm of what most DBAs would encounter. My role as a trainer means not only do I have a much broader knowledge of SQL, but I am able to understand and quickly design solutions for students so that they can return to their work places with tangible benefits of the training. As an exceptional trainer and DBA, I have the knowledge, skills and communications ability to manage databases, manage my teams and train my students to do the same. For these reasons I deserve to be selected as Exceptional DBA of 2009.

Josef Richberg

I started my database career in the publishing industry in the early 1990s, working with the Informix RDBMS. When I was hired by Sybase, Inc. to work within their professional services division, the next step in my career took me out of the publishing industry. I specialized in the performance and tuning of large systems.

While working for the consulting division of Sybase, I earned a coveted position in the education division, teaching advanced SQL techniques. I was teaching courses at the Sybase "University", either between other engagements, or if there were emergency needs for a particular course. After Sybase, my career took me to various companies, both in an employee position and in a variety of consulting arrangements. In January of 2008, I began working at HarperCollins Publishers.

Why Josef thinks he should win

As professionals in a very demanding industry, we are called upon to structure massive systems, perform miracles with speed and efficiency, and keep 10 terabytes of data on a 5 terabyte drive. Each time we accomplish another job that runs smoothly, or design a structure that will store far more than it should, more efficiently than it should, we help not only our employers, but each other in the DBA community. Fostering the sharing of these techniques and experiences is one of my greatest joys.

I make it a best practice to educate others on a daily basis, both inside my field of expertise (by exchanging knowledge, ideas, and techniques with other DBAs) and outside my field (by trying to educate non-DBAs on what an RDBMS is and why it is important to have experts in the field). All too often the RDBMS system is looked at as an after-thought when it comes to the software development life cycle, and developers are told to "just throw some SQL code in there and get the data".  If I am chosen as the Exceptional DBA of 2009, it would demonstrate that the DBA/SQL community is realizing that there is a gap between us and the rest of the development world,  and that the community joins in my efforts to bridge that gap.

Alex Rosa

I’ve been working in IT since 1993, the year of my graduation in Computer Science. In the beginning I had a job as a support analyst, but soon moved on to become a developer. After seven years as a developer, I took on my first job as a DBA in 2001. I’ve been working as a SQL Server and Oracle DBA for financial, healthcare and telecommunications companies. These days, I am focusing my career on performance analysis and high-availability environments.

Some milestones of my career: In 1999, I founded a small consulting company with the slogan "Professionals planning for the future, to act in the present". In 2002, I got my first Microsoft Certification in SQL Server, and, working with Microsoft Consulting Services Brazil, I was hired as a SQL Server DBA consultant for government projects. In 2004, I got the MCDBA certification in SQL Server 2000. In 2007, I got the MCITP DBA certification in SQL Server 2005. In 2008, I started my Oracle career to be able to offer my services with different products.

Why Alex thinks he should win

I deserve to become the Exceptional DBA of 2009...

... because I encourage others to keep learning...

... and hope that sharing my experience will help others.