John Roberts

John is currently Senior Archives Analyst with the Statutory Regulatory Group of the National Archives. He has been on the GOVIS executive committee since 1996, and is chair of the Conference Committee for GOVIS 3.

John has worked for the National Archives since 1990, and has been involved with a wide range of government agencies in respect of both paper and electronic recordkeeping. He holds an MA from Victoria University of Wellington, and is Treasurer of the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand (ARANZ). He is also on the editorial board of the association's journal Archifacts.

Micheal Hoyle

Micheal Hoyle is the Manager of the Statutory Regulatory Group at the National Archives of New Zealand. He holds a BA from the Australian National University and a Graduate Diploma in Librarianship from the Canberra College of Advanced Education.

Micheal has a broad information management background having worked in various positions at the National Archives of New Zealand, the Australian Archives, Department of Finance, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Commonwealth Parliamentary Library and the National Gallery of Australia library.

Jim Higgins

Jim Higgins of The Networking Edge has been involved with computing for more than 30 years. He is the President of the NZ Internet Society and a past president of the NZ Computer Society. He frequently speaks to press and radio audiences and gives presentations to many groups and conferences both in New Zealand and Overseas.

Ron Segal

Ron has over 20 years experience in the information technology sector. His early career was as a senior psychologist, civil servant, managing the development of state of art, computer based training simulators for the British Army. He then entered the IT industry proper, working for a several systems houses and end users organisations as a programmer, systems designer, analyst, consultant, project manager, and line manager.

Daniel Ayers

Daniel is Network Security Specialist at NetLink, focusing on the development of security solutions for Netlink clients. He works in both a consulting and research & development capacity.

His specialties include custom firewall design, production of "hardened" (extra-secure) servers, intrusion detection, analysis and investigation.

Ian Hight

Ian has 15 years experience in the New Zealand information technology industry. During the last 5 years his primary focus has been document management, including business process improvement and change management.

Ian's primary focus currently is as a Director of Silent One - a software development company based in New Zealand. A primary goal of the company is to become a leading manufacturer of document management software, worldwide.

Ian has been a regular commentator and presenter at conferences. His current role ensures that he retains a close focus on the document management market, both domestically and internationally.

Hylton Tuckett

Hylton is the Resource Manager (Technology Services) and has responsibilities for network projects, network performance management, end user training, telephony integration and the development of new capabilities for Team Comtex.

Hylton has over 27 years experience in information technology beginning in 1971 as an applications programmer. He has been in systems management and consulting since 1978.

Jay Garden

Jay Garden is the manager of the Government Communications Security Bureau's Information System Security Assessments unit. In his four years with the GCSB he has worked on system and product assessment, risk analysis, cryptography, security policy and standards development, and training. He has an honours degree in Information Science from the University of Otago.

Mark Harris

Currently the Information Management Strategist for the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, Mark Harris has been part of GOVIS since 1993 on committee, organising seminars and conferences and, just entering his third successive term, as Convenor. Mark is also a current Councillor of the Internet Society of New Zealand.

Frank Darby

Frank has been an ergonomics consultant since leaving OSH in 1996 after 18 years service in the fields of occupational health and ergonomics. He specialises in the design of VDU work, the ergonomics of communication and preventing overuse syndrome and `stress'.

James Buwalda

James Buwalda is the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology. He has held this position since July 1996, and was formerly the Chief Policy Adviser. The Ministry is the Government's primary adviser on science and technology policy.

Graeme Roffy

Graeme started his computing career in Auckland in the mid 60s as a programmer, first using Assembler and then Cobol. RPG, PL/1, and some machine specific languages followed.

Although subsequently working as an Analyst, Systems Programmer, and DP Manager he says "then you helped with work that had to be done, and if necessary worked 24 hours a day to complete it on time." Since those early days he has trained programmers and analysts, and been a systems consultant in New Zealand and SE Asia.

He now runs his own company providing speech recognition software and also works for the Technical Aid Trust which promotes the use of computers to help people overcome disabilities.

Colin Hicks

Colin is senior advisor (ethics) at the State Services Commission, Wellington.  He has been employed in the Public Service since 1966, in the areas of criminal justice administration, crime prevention, and ethics. Between 1983 and 1988 Colin was president of the Public Service Association.

After Dinner Speaker
Chris Theody

Chris joined Microsoft in 1995 as Practice Manager of the Microsoft Consulting Services group and has since managed the Systems Engineering Team, Microsoft's Application Developer Customer Unit and in September 1998 moved to the role of Corporate Sales Manager for Microsoft New Zealand.

Chris has been involved in the Information Technology industry for 26 years. He joined IBM New Zealand as a systems engineer in 1973 and has held management positions in engineering, sales, branch and nationwide operations manager. His motivation to join Microsoft was to work for a company that identified a clear strategy for desktop, server and web based computing within complex heterogeneous environment.