Barry Rebell: Nantucket

Brian Russel: Nantucket

Cary Prague: President and CEO - Microsoft Certified Professional, Microsoft Office User Specialist Cary Prague is an internationally best-selling author and lecturer in the database industry. He owns Database Creations, Inc. the world’s largest Microsoft Access add-on company.

Database Creations develops and markets many add-on software products for Microsoft Access including Yes! I Can Run My Businessä, a business sales and accounting program and winner of the 1998 Access Advisor Magazine Readers Choice award for best accounting application, Check Writer financial software, winner of the Microsoft Network award for best Access Application, the EZ Access line of developer products, the Access Business Forms Library distributed by Microsoft with Access 2.0 upgrades, TabMaster Pro Wizard, User Interface Construction Kit winner of the 1998 and 1996 Access Advisor Readers Choice award, the Calendar Construction Kit, the Picture Builder Add-On Picture Pack, and the Command Bar Image Editor and Image Pack.

Cary also manages a successful consulting company which is a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider specializing in Microsoft Access applications. His local and national clients include many Fortune 500 software companies, manufacturers, defense contractors, and insurance industry companies. His client list includes Microsoft, Borland International, ABB, Smith & Wesson Firearms, Pratt and Whitney Aircraft and other Fortune 500 companies.

Formerly, he has held numerous management positions in corporate information systems, including Director of Managed Care Reporting for MetraHealth, Director of Corporate Finance & Software Productivity at Travelers Insurance where he was responsible for software support and training for 35,000 end users.

He is one of the best selling authors in the computer database management market having written over thirty five books which have sold over one million copies on software including Microsoft Access, Borland’s dBASE IV, Paradox, R:Base and Framework. Cary’s books include the Microsoft Access Bible (recently number one on the Ingram Bestselling Database Titles list and in the amazom.com top 100), Access 97 Secrets, dBASE for Windows Handbook, dBASE IV Programming (winner of the Computer Press Association’s Book of the Year award for Best Software Specific Book), and Everyman’s Database Primer Featuring dBASE IV. He recently completed several new Access 2000 books.

Cary is certified in Access as a Microsoft Certified Professional and has passed the MOUS test in Access and Word. He is a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences around the country. He is on the exclusive 18 person Microsoft Access Insider Advisory Board and makes frequent trips to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA. He has been voted the best speaker by the attendees of several national conferences. Recently, he was a speaker for Microsoft sponsored conferences in Hawaii, Phoenix, Chicago, Toronto, Palm Springs, Boston and Orlando. He has also spoken at Borland’s Database Conference, Digital Consulting’s Database World, Microsoft’s Developer Days, Computerland’s Technomics Conference, COMDEX, and COMPAQ Computer’s Innovate. He was a contributing editor to Access Advisor magazine and continues to write for them.

Cary holds a master’s degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and an M.B.A and Bachelor of Accounting from the University of Connecticut. He is also a Certified Data Processor.

Dirk Lesko: Creator of the FUNCky library.

George Juarez: Nantucket

Larry Heimendinger: Former President of Nantucket Software.

Luis Castro: He was co-author of the famous Advanced dBASE Programmer's Guide, along with Tom Rettig and Jeb Long. Luis wrote ViewGen, a dBASE screen generator which was bought by Fox and incorporated into FoxPro 1.0 as FoxView. Later, he wrote Stage, a dictionary driven framework for FoxPro. A very powerful and under-appreciated framework.

Paul Heiser: Was the creator of dSALVAGE Professional to diagnose and repair corrupt datafiles in FoxPro, dBASE, Clipper and other Xbase products.

Randy Wallin: Co-creator of Quiet Flight Macros for Brief and dBrief editor. Later co-creator of CEE editor extensions, both along with Ryan Katri.

Tom Rettig:Tom Rettig was the first boy who tagged after Lassie during the famous collie's 20 years on the CBS television network. An already established child star, he was chosen from over 500 other boys to play the 11 year old midwestern farm boy, Jeff Miller, when "Lassie" (1954) premiered on September 12, 1954. He stayed with the series until 1958. He made his stage debut at age 6 in the touring company of "Annie Get Your Gun", with 'Mary Martin'. His screen debut was at age 9 and he made 17 films. His most memorable screen performance was as the boy with the vivid imagination in 'The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.'

Following 'Lassie' came a troubled life filled with failure to land major adult roles, arrests and convictions for growing marijuana, divorce, and a string of jobs including photographer, tool salesman, computer programmer, and health club manager.

For the last ten or so years of his life (starting 1984, maybe earlier), Tom was a very successful software developer working on office applications. He was regarded as one of the experts in the area of Ashton-Tate's dBASE product line and related products. Several products are still named after Tom Rettig.

Tom Rettig was a major guru in the Fox community. To those of us who had the privilege of knowing him, he was a friend in the truest sense. Among Tom's accomplishments were TRO (a FrameWork and accounting application for FoxPro 2.X), and multiple other utilities that allowed development in FoxPro to be easier and faster. He participated in the "standardization" effort of the major after market product vendors during the FoxPro 2.x years.

Tom was a person whose stature in the community never interfered in his ability to meet and enjoy people. Many were the times that a new person to FoxPro would marvel at Tom's ability to make them feel important and a valuable contributor to the community knowledge.

Small in stature, but big in heart, Tom was born in Dec. 10, 1941 and died in Feb. 15, 1996 at the age of 54. See a "Program for Life" authored by the late Tom Rettig.