Charles Brian Quinn

Charles is the face of Highgroove's Consulting and Training for over 5 years. He is a former road-warrior consultant to Fortune 500 companies and government agencies around the world, with real-world knowledge and experience in building web applications and software architectures. He has worked with organizations such as The New York Times, Deloitte & Touche, Accenture, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, the Municipality of Durban in South Africa, and several government agencies in the Southeast.

The Rails Way

He is also the lead instructor of the Ruby on Rails Bootcamp class at the Big Nerd Ranch, a premiere technology training facility, and a contributing author to The Rails Way.

Charles is a bit of a food snob, and his latest kick is pouring latte art in Barista throw-downs and espresso cupping. He graduated with High Honor from Georgia Tech with a B.S. in Computer Science.

Derek Haynes

The founder of Highgroove Studios, Derek has been working almost exclusively with Ruby on Rails since 2004. He's led the development of several award-winning Rails applications, including a DEMOGod award-winner and the "Most Useful" RailsDay application, and plays the role of editor when working with clients—helping them decide what to include, what to cut, and how it should be implemented in an application. He has brought his unique perspective on web development and business needs to technology startups and Fortune 100 companies, and regularly speaks and contributes articles on Ruby on Rails.

Derek now leads development and marketing for Scout, a product originally developed in-house at Highgroove -- now a full-featured software-as-a-service solution for web application monitoring and analytics.

In his free time, Derek anchors the defense on his hockey team and is always up for a bike ride (preferring the Marin Headlines loop). He graduated with High Honor from Georgia Tech with a B.S in Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Andre Lewis

Andre Lewis is a former Accenture consultant turned Ruby on Rails expert. He likes thinking about problems holistically, from business processes through usability considerations to database schemas, and has architected web applications supporting millions of pageviews per day. He is a mapping and geo-location guru, and the author of Google Maps Applications with Rails and Ajax, published by Apress.

by Andre Lewis

Andre now runs Scout, and has been instrumental in the marketing and fostering of several relationships with major hosting companies to monitor large-scale infrastructures.

Andre contributes to the community through open source projects and talks. He has spoken at RailsConf and SD Forum, and he frequents Bay Area technology and entrepreneurial groups.

James Edward Gray II

by James Gray II

One of the select developers with commit access to Ruby itself, the author of Best of Ruby Quiz and TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac (a popular editor used for Ruby), and a contributing author to the Ruby Cookbook, James Edward Gray II is Highgroove's resident code ninja. He spends work hours designing and implementing complex database layers and his free time engrossed in technical manuals, because he has a warped sense of fun.

James has been very active in the online Ruby community over the years writing open source libraries (one that recently became a standard Ruby library), running the popular Ruby Quiz contest for three full years, and writing books about the language. Recently James has been giving speeches at Ruby conferences, mostly about his favorite TV shows.

When James isn't speaking to machines in code, he prefers to be talking with his wonderful wife Dana and their two children (a Shih Tzu and her Siamese playmate) or playing a little chess.

Dana Gray

Having put in more than her fair share of time in the trenches as a software user, Dana decided it was time to switch sides and help users get the software they want and need. She is on a mission to make web applications that make life easier.

Dana has been involved with the design and building of a CRM for a complex and highly specialized field, sales lead management software, project collaboration software for a mid-sized marketing team, and a shared file storage application. More recently Dana has helped Highgroove with an application expected to literally save the planet. She has big goals.

Dana holds a bachelors in English from Ottawa University and a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma. Outside the office, where she sits six feet away from James (see above), Dana enjoys quilting and playing with kitchen appliances. She has dehydrated just about everything in her house, except James!

Matt Todd

A self-taught pragmatic developer and Ruby enthusiast, Matt is also an established voice on the speaking circuit. He has spoken at numerous conferences, including RubyFringe in Toronto, Canada, MerbCamp in San Diego, California, and MerbDay Atlanta. He presents regularly to the Atlanta Ruby User Group. He also focuses a good bit of attention on Open Source Ruby projects like Rack, Thin, and Merb, and has led development on several projects, primarily Halycon.

For Highgroove, Matt serves as an Open Source Software Architect -- helping Highgroove take full advantage of the very best tools, by creating and sharing libraries, plugins, and reusable code, while nurturing and supporting the communities around them.

Matt serves as the Atlanta Office's DJ, and when he's not playing eclectic music, he's creating his own with his band. He is also a Beer connoisseur, and is able to use words like hoppy, malty, smooth-finishing, and creamy undertones with other aficionados on brewery tours and food pairings.

Mark Percival

Mark is one of the guys behind SquarePush, but at Highgroove, we've come to rely on him as one of our own. Mark has extensive experience developing mobile and online marketing applications, and is an entrepreneur behind several successful web-based products.

He has an extensive experience integrating with social media sites, Amazons cloud computing network and various payment systems. He's also a cofounder of Twitpay, a twitter payment system featured by the New York Times. Mark has also architected a successful mobile 2D barcode platform which now sees extensive use in Europe, and has a broad understanding of the mobile market's hurdles.

Jodi Bell-Quinn

Jodi is Highgroove's office manager. She's the one who sends the invoices, and signs the checks. We're actually not the only office she whips into shape. She just recently finished revamping an anti-aging clinic's accounting system, helping them reorganize and restructure the way they do business.

Jodi has an Architecture degree from Georgia Tech, and has extensive experience and formal training in project management, real estate development, interior architecture, remodeling, and building construction. She is also a mid-century modern fan, and drives a fully restored vehicle from 1971.

Cooper

Cooper is Highgroove's Official Mascot. Cooper is a Boston Terrier, but likes to think of himself as much, much larger dog. He is a fan of simple things: anything edible, walks in the park, and a scratch behind the ears. At Highgroove, we also like to keep things simple: simpler software, simpler ways of development, simpler user interfaces, and simpler ways of working with developers -- Cooper approves.

In his Official Mascot duties, he is sometimes present at the office, providing morale boosting tummy-rubs, and security detail from time to time.