Alex Lemann is a founding member of Caktus Consulting Group. He was involved in the computer science groups at Earlham working on a number of projects including research on theory of formal languages, computational science education using cluster computing, and embedded systems used to collect data on weather and energy consumption.

Alex splits his time between Caktus and continuing his computer science studies at DePaul University where he is finishing up a Masters degree. At DePaul, Alex has focused on data analysis using both statistical as well as machine learning techniques.

Alex has a wide variety of geeky interests such as learning about open source technology and communities, cluster computing, energy monitoring, software engineering, and user experience design. When taking a break from work and studies he enjoys gardening, playing with his dogs, and running.

Caleb Smith joined Caktus in 2011 after teaching music at an elementary school in Asheville, NC. He first started working with Django after writing game engines and pet projects in C++ and was amazed at the quality and speed of development that it offers.

Caleb is interested in open source software and is an avid Linux supporter. When not computing, he is interested in Music Theory, cooking Indian food, and music synthesis.

For the past five years Calvin has focused on Django and jQuery development, while never ignoring the broad range of interesting things in other software communities, be it new servers written in Javascript with Node.js or the ever going developments of services like AWS and AppEngine.

When able to pull himself away from the keyboard, he has been known to coordinate community events in his adopted Greensboro, ranging from social gatherings to local political campaigns.

Colin co-founded Caktus Consulting Group in 2007. Before Caktus, he worked as a web developer and programmer at Earlham and Oberlin college and was also a developer at a small, Macintosh software company.

Colin's skills include Django web development and Python programming. He's a proponent of automated testing and continuous integration, PEP8 coding conventions, and is always looking to improve our deployment process.

Colin helped organize several Django sprints in the Chapel Hill area during the 1.2 release push and regularly contributes to the open source reusable Django apps developed at Caktus. He also frequents local meetups, including TriZPUG and Refresh The Triangle.

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Dan Poirier came to Caktus after 19 years at a large company working on networking software. He has been a committer on the Apache HTTP Server project since 2009, and was a speaker at ApacheCon NA 2010. A long-time Python fan, when he first tried Django he was immediately impressed with how quickly he could start creating useful applications.

When not computing, Dan enjoys choral singing and has been a member of the Chapel Hill Community Chorus since 2004. He also likes taking his ukulele to jams and song circles. He reads hard science fiction and dark fantasy.

David has been involved with Open Source projects and Python since early 2004. With a Master's in Human-Computer Interaction Design from Indiana University's School of Informatics, David focuses on designing and building applications that enrich and enhance the end user experience. When not bound to a keyboard and monitor writing code, he has been known to be an excellent bridge between stakeholders and development teams, translating non-technical user stories into discreet, actionable technical specifications, managing the development process, authoring training materials, and leading workshops.

In his spare time, David pulls out his Master's in Music and chortles operatic tunes.

George Saines graduated from Oberlin College in 2008 with a degree in Economics and started his career by founding a web startup. The startup helps students of Chinese and Japanese better learn and remember their characters. It continues to grow and flourish, which has given George more opportunity to continue exploring his tech interests.

As a web developer, graphic designer, and "business guy," George focuses on project management at Caktus. His primary responsibilities include keeping clients up to date on the work being done and removing obstacles from the paths of the other fine folks at the company.

In his spare time George keeps a personal blog about technology, travels with his fiancée, and attends recreational soccer meetups.

Julia has been working her brand of web skills for nearly a decade. She started out as a designer for an internal marketing group at a travel agency in Los Angeles, and quickly honed her skills as a web designer using HTML/CSS and dabbled in PHP along the way. Her creative nature drove her to find work at Hallmark Cards, Inc. She mostly worked on Flash development and projects such as the Product (RED) campaign and Hallmark's site re-design. In 2007, her team was awarded the AIGA award for Web Design as a result of their work on the Product (RED) microsite.

She first learned about Django after attending the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival. She was amazed at how rapidly you can create useful web applications using Django. Shortly after the festival, she left Hallmark to work at the Lawrence Journal World as a Junior Designer/Developer, where Django originated. She worked on projects such as Ellington CMS and Marketplace, where she developed applications, designed templates, and wrote client-side documentation.

Julia joined the Caktus Group in 2011 and is thrilled to work with some of the most talented Django developers this side of the Mississippi. She is looking forward to further honing her skill set.

Karen has been working with Django since late 2006, when she set out to put a web front-end on her crossword puzzle database. She was impressed by the framework and its community and began answering questions on the django-users mailing list and helping out with ticket triage and bug fixes. She became a Django core committer in September 2008 and continues to enjoy helping users, participating in local sprints, and contributing to Django's development. She is the author of Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging, published by Packt Publishing in April, 2010.

Before getting involved with Django, Karen worked for several years in the computer industry on various software products centered on communications protocols and middleware. She received a PhD in Electrical/Computer Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, where her graduate research focused on distributed operating systems.

Karen is also a crossword puzzle constructor; she has published around 100 puzzles in The New York Times and other national newspapers. Outside of puzzles and Django work Karen enjoys volunteering with Alley Cats and Angels, a local cat rescue organization dedicated to improving the lives and reducing the population of homeless cats in the Triangle area.

Mark recently turned the skills he gained working on Wall Street to the web. Whether it's writing server side code in Django or a slick UI with jQuery, Mark enjoys bringing his passion for web development to Caktus. He stays up to date on the latest search engine optimization and web standards through local meetings. Mark is active in the local Python community and has helped organize events to encourage learning Python. You can also find him answering Django questions on Stackoverflow.

Mark is a proud alumnus of NC State and New York University. He is an active runner and enjoys micro-brew beers, college sports, and spending time with his family.

Nicole Foster has worked for a number of years in Raleigh's nonprofit community. Most recently, Nicole worked as a Project Assistant at Blueprint, NC, a nonprofit consultancy organization. Nicole has considerable administrative, research, and office management experience. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Asheville, where she obtained her B.A. in Literature.

She is an avid, and at times obsessive, reader with a wide variety of interests including birds, linguistics, pop music, literary theory, and cartoons. Born in St. Louis, Nicole has lived in 6 different states, moving to the Triangle area of North Carolina in 2000. In her free time, she enjoys practicing yoga, dancing, and seeking out adventure.

Scott is the Systems Administrator at Caktus. Scott likes to delight customers with smooth deployments and lots of up time. In his spare time Scott Runs and Bikes with his 2 children through the wilds of Carrboro.

After graduating from college, Tobias took a year off to bicycle through South America before moving to North Carolina and co-founding Caktus Consulting Group in 2007. Before Caktus, Tobias owned and operated a small software and web hosting company for a number of years and supported his college career writing statistics software in his home town of Ithaca, NY.

Tobias is an active member of the Django development community and a core developer of the RapidSMS framework, and makes regular contributions to both the projects.  He is the co-author of and chief advocate for the messages framework that was introduced in Django 1.2 and has helped Colin organize several successful Django development sprints in the North Carolina Research Triangle area.

Tobias's skills include database-enabled web development, software engineering, and Linux system administration. When he's not writing software, Tobias loves cooking, making pottery, and cycling.

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