Meenakshi Verma has been part of the IT industry since 1998. She is experienced in putting up solutions across multiple industry segments using Java/J2EE technologies. She is currently based in Toronto, Canada and is working with Sapient, a leading North American Consultancy organization. Sapient is a global organization which has offices across North America, Europe and India.

Meenakshi has been helping with technical reviews for books published by Packt Publishing across varied enterprise solutions. Her earlier work includes JasperReports for Java Developers, Java EE 5 Development using GlassFish Application Server, Practical Data Analysis and Reporting with BIRT.

Chris Mawata earned his Masters degree at the University of Western Australia and his Ph.D at the University of Hawaii. He was a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for fifteen years after which he went into Java consulting and technical training. He currently trains Java developers and writes course materials for Learning Tree International. He is also sponsored by a National Science Foundation grant to be a Java consultant for Phenotype Screening Corporation.

Lawrence Bean fell out of Computer Science and into Music Education in his sophomore year of college. He graduated with a BA in Music Education from the University of Maine in 1986 and had a ten year career as a Choral Music Educator in the Kennebunk, Maine school system, while continuing his technology pursuits as a hobby. His large non-audition groups won silver at the Events America Choral Festival and his select group was featured on Good Morning America and in Yankee Magazine for their annual performances of traditional christmas carols at the highly acclaimed Kennebunkport Christmas Prelude.

He fell back into Computer Science with the offer of a position as Technology Coordinator at SU#47 in greater Bath, Maine and completed his MS in Computer Science in 2006. For the past ten years he has literally built the school system's technology program, from pulling CAT-5 through the walls and constructing PCs out of spare parts to writing data analysis modules and a custom SIF-compliant Student Information System, while continuing his musical pursuits as a hobby.

Throughout he has been highly involved in the Maine Music Educators Association, American Choral Directors Association of Maine, Association of Computer Technology Educators in Maine, and the Barbershop Harmony Society, holding various positions of responsibility and bringing the Maine All-State Auditions into the 21st century with on-line applications, judging, and results processing.

He has been a strong advocate for free, open-source solutions for public schools and currently presents workshops on IPCop Firewalls and the Koha ILS.

Larry lives with his very patient wife Betsy in Saco, Maine, USA.