Sponsored by: 

Jay Hoyer has served in the Chief Executive Office of the Walnut Creek Chamber since 1991. Prior to 1991, he was the President of an international transportation company and served at Chambers of Commerce in Salem, OR., Boulder, CO., Twin Falls, ID., and Iowa City, IA.

Jay is a Board Member of the Western Association of Chamber Executives, a group representing nearly 500 Chambers of Commerce. Jay's focus at WACE is on information technology.

Jay is a graduate of the US Chamber's Institute for Organizational Management. He graduated from, and is one of only forty members of the Academy of Organizational Management at the University of Notre Dame.

Neal O'Farrell is CEO of security training company Hackademia Inc, based in San Ramon CA, and creator of the original Think Security First! program. A world renowned expert on information security, he has been involved in security for more than two decades, in Ireland, Great Britain, and the United States, and has worked as an advisor to military, intelligence, police, government, the financial sector, and Fortune 500 companies.

Neal has been a panel expert and contributor for SearchSecurity, the leading information portal for the information security industry, and Technical Editor for the Hack Proofing series of security guides. He is a member of the Community Outreach Committee of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), the world's largest professional security organization.

As Editor of The Zone, one of the world's largest circulation security newsletters, each month Neal provided security advice to nearly 3 million subscribers in more than 120 countries. As a security educator Neal ran his first security conference in 1989, co-hosting with IBM one of Europe's first network security conferences. A full bio can be found here.

Lu Bible is an investor and Business Manager of ASYST, A Systems Company in Walnut Creek, California, which has provided computer services to the San Francisco Bay Area since 1985. ASYST (pronounced “assist”) is a Microsoft Certified Partner, Cisco Authorized Reseller, Intel Premier Provider, and Hewlett-Packard Authorized Partner. More information about ASYST, A Systems Company is at www.ASystemsCo.com.

Ms. Bible is Chair Elect of the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce. During the past half dozen years, she has served on the Chamber’s Board of Directors and has chaired its Technology Committee, which sponsors educational seminars and annual fairs, including the Cyber Security 2002 event. In the year 2000, the Chamber inaugurated the Business-Person-of-the-Year award and honored Ms. Bible as its first recipient.

Barak Engel leads the IT Security practice for Vela Global, a Silicon Valley technology venture firm. Barak is the former Head of Security for WebEx, the global leader in web conferencing. Barak has also served as Chief Architect for Netvision, Israel's largest ISP.

In 1998, Barak helped federal authorities track down the notorious hacker known as The Analyzer, later convicted for hacking the Pentagon and FBI web sites.

Jim Anderson was until recently Vice President of Global Information Security Services for Inovant, a position that encompasses information security architecture for Visa's worldwide regions. Prior to joining Visa, Jim served domestic and international enterprise customers as Principal Consultant leading the information security practice of SRI Consulting and headed the International Institute for Information Integrity (I-4) as Program Director.

Jim headed the information security unit of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter after designing, implementing and managing the physical and information security program while at Lexis-Nexis, Inc. Earlier, Jim served in a variety of IT roles in large commercial banks and at Deloitte & Touche as a management consultant assisting clients in the large scale systems arena. He has served on the advisory panels of both I-4 and the Computer Security Institute and published several articles for the information security community.

Marcie Hochhauser is Marketing Director of the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce which she joined in 1980.

Marcie was the 1985 recipient of the California Chamber's Gerald W. Hathaway Award in honor and recognition of significant contributions to Chamber of Commerce management as a staff member. She was the 1986 President of the Contra Costa Chamber of Commerce Executives and has served on the board of directors for the Superior California Chamber of Commerce Executives Association.

Brad Kofoed is Vice President of Business Development for eVault, a Walnut Creek-based leader in online data back-up and recovery. Brad is perhaps best known as advisor to the Chair of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion at the White House.

In that role he was responsible for coordinating the Y2K readiness efforts and contingency planning for five sectors of the American economy. Brad was also the liaison to the United Nations Y2K Cooperation Center (IY2KCC).

Preston Cranford is founder and President of Internet University of America, Inc., an early innovator in Internet training.

Preston has been involved in the creation of leading-edge education products for a number of well-known television personalities, including personal financial guru Suze Orman, as well as Richard Carslon, whose self-help guide Don't Sweat the Small Stuff has sold more than 22 million copies in 126 countries

Preston is a former Vice President of Prudential Securities in San Francisco, CA, and opened the doors to Internet University of America in 1995.

Preston is currently on the Board of Directors for the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce.