Mark Richards

Mark Richards is a Director and Sr. Technical Architect at Collaborative Consulting, LLC., where he is involved in the architecture and design of Service Oriented Architectures in J2EE and other technologies, primarily in the financial services industry. He has been involved in the software industry since 1984, and has significant experience and expertise in J2EE architecture and development, Object-oriented design and development, and systems integration.

Mark served as the President of the Boston Java User Group in 1997 and 1998, and the President of the New England Java Users Group from 1999 thru 2003. Mark is also the author of "Java Transaction Design Strategies" and contributing author of "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know" (O'Reilly 2009), "NFJS Anthology Volume 1", and "NFJS Anthology Volume 2". Mark is an IBM Certified Application Architect, Certified Master IT Architect (TOG), Sun Certified J2EE Business Component Developer, a Sun Certified J2EE Enterprise Architect, a Sun Certified Java Programmer, a BEA WebLogic Certified Developer, a Certified Java Instructor, and holds a Master's Degree in Computer Science from Boston University. He is a regular conference speaker at the No Fluff Just Stuff Symposium Series and speaks at conferences and user groups around the country.

When he is not working Mark can usually be found hiking with his wife and two daughters in the White Mountains or along the Appalachian Trail.