Keith Kidd is a Director in Verizon's Network and Technology Labs with responsibility for the organization's Automation strategy as well as testing of Enterprise class equipment utilized by Verizon's customers.

Prior his experience in the Labs, Mr. Kidd served in various IT roles spanning 22 years, including the development of systems in support of Verizon's ISP business and various internal and external development efforts and data center operations.

Mr. Kidd's adventures in automation began in the data center with various efforts to automate management of key online systems. Following his success in the data center, Mr. Kidd applied his knowledge and expertise to processes improvements in the maintenance cycles and developed key automation to eliminate errors in system and software upgrade process. Mr. Kidd then moved on to challenges in software development where his automation leadership skills were put to the test in a number of development efforts spanning multi-tiered applications across many systems development efforts.

Vince Mendoza has been working in the computer network industry for over 18 years. Currently he holds a position as a Master Technical Consultant in the Solutions Test Center at ProCurve Networking by Hewlett-Packard (Roseville California). Mr. Mendoza has spent the last 13+ years at Hewlett-Packard focused on testing, software development of test tools, and test automation architecture. Currently for automation, he is leading a cross-geographical development team in building an automated test framework as well as automated tests for ProCurve Network devices.

Prior to joining Hewlett-Packard, Vince held positions at Bay Networks / SynOptics Communications, UltraNetwork Technologies, and The Wollongong Group. Vince received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from The University of the Pacific in 1991.

Steve Mitchell is the Manager of the Integrated Systems Test Team for F5 Networks, and leads the performance and sizing test efforts for the entire organization. In addition, Mr. Mitchell is responsible for the organization's strategy, tools, and solutions for performance and stress testing. Steve has been at F5 Networks for 9 years, and has been involved in engineering and design, performance testing, test and lab automation, and facilities design and deployment.

Mr. Mitchell is very active in the performance testing community, and has provided guidance to many organizations to optimize their use of automation. His 17 years of experience includes time at F5 Networks, as well as ETM Entertainment Network, Sierra On-Line, Sagem Morpho, and Frank Russell.

Brian Buege is the Head of BT's Test Strategy and Development of new capabilities. In this role, he is responsible for the strategy, process, tools, and technologies used to verify the capabilities of solutions across all BT lines of business. Throughout his career, he has held a wide variety of technical leadership positions such as: CIO of a research university, head of information systems security for a major airline, independent consultant specializing in the design and deployment of large-scale, enterprise technology architectures, and director of information systems for a unit of the US military. He has project-based experience in the Telecommunications, Financial Services, Transport, Healthcare, Defence, and Education sectors.

Brian holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science along with numerous technical certifications and long-standing membership in several professional societies related to computing. He has co-authored or contributed to several books relating to the security of information systems. Some of his personal interests are exploring alternative forms of power generation and keeping his video game skills honed to the point that he can still defeat his eight year old son...