Microsoft Community Leader Awards

Larry Christofaro, PMP, MCITP

Awarded Community Leader for his dedication in helping other users via informative in person events, community building and his excellent contributions to the MPUG discussion forums.

Larry Christofaro is a senior consultant for Tribridge, with over 20 years of project management experience. Larry has combined his strengths in EPM architecture and project management to successfully manage Microsoft Project deployments for clients ranging from 50-2000 users. Larry is a Microsoft Certified IT Professional and a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist for MS Project and Project Server.

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Matthew T. Davis, PMP, MCITP

Awarded Community Leader for his contributions to the Compelling Project Talk Series.

Matthew has been an active member of the Project Management Community for more than 20 years. Mr. Davis has managed development and delivery of PMO’s, EPM deployments, project delivery methodologies, strategic change programs, training seminars, organizational maturity assessments, and other strategic initiatives for clients of all kinds. Mr. Davis has provided consulting services to a variety of well-known companies, including Fidelity Investments, Estee Lauder, Reuters News, John Hancock Insurance, Iron Mountain, Mead Johnson, Mohegan Sun Casino, and AARP. He has also provided consulting services to leaders in the medical and healthcare industries including Smith & Nephew, Biogen-Idec, and Hewlett-Packard Medical Products Group. Mr. Davis is Vice-President for Consulting Services at PM Providers, a certified Project Management Professional (PMP)®, a Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional (MCITP) in Project & Portfolio Management, and President of the Microsoft Project Users Group (MPUG) Boston Chapter.

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Jacques Goupil, PMP, MCP, MCTS

Awarded Community Leader Award for his excellence in training.

Jacques is Director of Business Development at PPM Works, Inc. PPM Works runs their business on Project Server 2013 and have completed several Project Server implementations and upgrades. Jacques was the Lead SME and writer for the Microsoft Project Certification Exam 70-178, Project 2010, Managing Projects, a board member of the Boston and South Florida MPUG Chapters, and an MPUG Project 2010 Certification Instructor. He has over 15 years of professional experience with very strong background in project management, specializing in developing and improving Project Management processes for clients, and training. He has considerable experience in creating and delivering instructor-led, PMI aligned, Project Management training in both the commercial and public arenas including several speaking engagements, training sessions, webcasts, and sessions for both PMI and MPUG. He was recognized by MSFT for his blogs covering Project 2010 and as speaker at the Microsoft Project Conference 2012. He also was a moderator and speaker at the 2011, 2012, and 2013 Project Summit roundtable sessions and most recently received an MPUG Community Power Skills Award for his unending contributions to the Project community.

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Ben Howard, MVP

Awarded Community Leader for his very popular and comprehensive UK web training series.
Ben Howard has over 20 years experience of implementing enterprise solutions such as MRPII, ERP, and latterly Microsoft’s EPM (Project and Project Server) solution. During that time hes worked for IBM, DELL, and Microsoft, as well as several smaller organisations. He now runs his own EPM consultancy (Applepark Ltd), providing Project Server implementation and training services.

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Ellen Lehnert, PMP, MVP, MCT, MCITP

Ellen Lehnert, Community Leader Author Award for the popularity of her, “Ask the Expert” articles.

Ellen Lehnert is a Microsoft Project MVP with over 20 years of corporate training and consulting experience. Ellen teaches customized classes as well as develops customized processes for using MS Project and MS Project Server. She is the author of “Managing Projects using MS Project 2010 desktop” courseware, a contributor to many reference books, writes the monthly “Ask the Expert” column for the Microsoft Project User Group (MPUG) newsletter, a developer of the 70-178 MS Project 2010 certification test, and frequent meeting speaker. Ellen brings a unique combination of licensed teacher, programming background and real world consulting experience to her classes and her clients.

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Gerald Leonard, PMP, MCSE, MCTS

Awarded Community Leader for his individual chapter leadership and his recruitment of an excellent chapter board. The team has made the Washington DC, Baltimore and Virginia chapter one of the strongest in terms of community, compelling events and content.

Gerald Leonard attended Central State University for a Bachelor in Music and Cincinnati Conservatory of Music for a Master in Music as a classical bassist. After receiving his master, Gerald lived in New York City where he worked as a professional bassist and studied with David Walters (Juilliard / Manhattan School of Music). Gerald then worked in the ministry for the New York City Church of Christ as a full time minister and musician. After coming out of the ministry to pursue his music career with a family, Gerald was introduced to the world of Network computing and Project Management. During the last 17 years Gerald has worked as a IT Project Management consultant and earned the PMP®, MCSE, MCTS, CQIA, COBIT Foundation and ITIL foundation certifications. He has also earned certifications in Project Management and Business Intelligence from University of California, Berkeley as well as an Executive Power Skills Certification from Cornell University.

Gerald Leonard is currently the Director of Portfolio Strategies and Governance Solutions at Edwards Project Solutions. He loves to play golf and you may still find him playing his upright bass on special occasions.

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John Riopel, PMP, MCP, MCTS

Awarded Community Leader for his contributions to the Compelling Project Talk Series.

John has over 24 years of experience as a Program and Project Manager in government services and commercial industry implementing and managing internal, civil, commercial, and government projects. John has provided Program and Project management expertise to the US Navy, Army, banking, telecommunications, retail, and entertainment industry clients. Using a disciplined approach aligned to the Project Management Institute, John has lead teams in the delivery of strategic initiatives throughout his career. Johns technical background in Microsoft project management technologies spans the entire evolution of the Microsoft Project toolset, with a deep understanding of how to apply these technology constructs and concepts to real-world project management challenges. Mr. Riopel is President and CEO of the project and portfolio management consulting firm PM Providers. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP)®, a certified Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) and a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in Project & Portfolio Management.

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Eric Uyttewaal, PMP, Microsoft MVP for Project

Awarded Community Leader for his excellence in training.

Eric is one of the foremost experts on management software from Microsoft. He authored the book “Forecast Scheduling with Microsoft Project 2010” and “Dynamic Scheduling with Microsoft Office Project 2000/2002/2003.” He is president of ProjectPro Corp, a company specializing in Microsoft Project and Project Server (www.ProjectProCorp.com). Eric has been involved in large programs: Canadian Forces Supply System Upgrade, Cognos (IBM) BI Suite release and Northrop Grumman Airplane Upgrade.

In 2010, Eric was named most valuable professional in Microsoft Project by Microsoft. In 2009, Eric received an award from PMI for his contributions to the scheduling profession. In 1997, he presided over the Ottawa Chapter of The Project Management Institute (PMI)®. Since 2009, he is president of the MPUG-Ottawa chapter.

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Kevin Watson, PMP, MCT, MCTS

Awarded for his article, The Seven Deadly Sins of Project Schedules
With over 25 years of project management experience, Kevin Watson, PMP, MCT, MCTS, is a black belt in Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server. Kevin brings a unique combination of project management and project server to the field, where he is a Senior Consultant with Microsoft. Kevin has spent 5 of his six years at Microsoft deploying project server to large government agencies and is currently the national EPM community lead within Microsoft. Contact him at kevinw@microsoft.com.