Hardware Designers Inc.

Ron Muns, founder and CEO of Help Desk Institute, is an international leader in help desks/customer support industry and is frequently quoted on key issues and concerns for the support industry. He is credited with having a significant global impact on the professionalism of the help desk/customer services industry. Ron has published some of the most highly rated support industry surveys and workbooks, notably The Help Desk Handbook. He has more than 25 years of experience in the help desk/support industry, first as a leading "Big Six" consultant in the help desk profession, as the founder of the Help Desk Institute (HDI), as a software engineer, as the creator of several successful commercial software products, and as an IT strategist. Ron is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Information Systems Auditor, and holds a Certificate in Data Processing. He has a Bachelors Degree in Business Statistics from the University of Texas at Austin. Ron was the founder of Bendata, Inc., a software company providing solutions to the help desk/customer services marketplace. Presently, Ron focuses his energies on meeting the needs of the members of the Help Desk Institute.

Ms. Kempf liaises with the private sector, governmental agencies and international organizations to create and manage HDI's mine action programs. Ms. Kempf is a native of Croatia, where she served as a national program coordinator for the Open Society Institute's international education program and worked with teachers and students from over twenty countries. Before joining HDI, Ms. Kempf served as Chief of Staff for an international democracy and education program funded by the U.S. Department of State, and taught Argumentation and Debate at Marymount Manhattan College in New York. Ms. Kempf holds a master's degree in Political Communication from Emerson College in Boston, where she volunteered on a landmine awareness campaign organized by UNICEF New England.

Ms. Gosselin is responsible for HDI's ongoing series of US-UN programs. Prior to joining HDI, Ms. Gosselin received her MA in international relations and diplomacy in Paris, France, where she wrote her thesis on the Colombian conflict. Ms. Gosselin has worked in the field of international education, at the U.S. Mission to the OECD and briefly as a research intern at INTERPOL headquarters in Lyon, France. Ms. Gosselin received her BA in languages from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998. Ms. Gosselin speaks fluent French and is highly proficient in Spanish.

Dr. Eugene Ball, Senior Instructor, provides both operations expertise and a "hands-on" understanding of support center software technologies. He has conducted numerous IT assessment/reengineering projects and designed, directed and executed problem and change management system implementations. Gene has served on the founding committee of the HDI Individual Certification Standards, served as contributing analyst for the HDI Industry Practices Report and is an active member of the HDI education committee. As a practitioner, he has performed various IT Support related roles including IS Manager, Customer Support Manager and User Support Supervisor. He is a frequent speaker and author and co-founder of the North Carolina chapter of HDI. He is an ITIL Certified Service Manager Master. John Custy, Adjunct Faculty,has over 25 years experience in design, analysis, and operations for Information Technology services. For the last twelve years he has served in a consultative role for technical services and support organizations. His global experience spans his entire career, as he has been involved in designing and implementing services for multinational, international, and global organizations. He is a recognized authority in the support services industry, sharing his experience in strategic planning, services architecture, site/individual certification, services assessment, workflow analysis, process optimization, release management, support center consolidation and staffing and scheduling models. John is an ITIL Certified Service Manager Master. Marty Larsen, Adjunct Faculty, has over 20 years experience in IT services. His experience includes service delivery, outsourcing, consulting and operations focused exclusively on IT infrastructure. Marty specializes in distributed computing transformation and cross functional business re-engineering for infrastructure operations utilizing IT process frameworks, including ITIL and MOF. He has helped lead, create, and implement innovative service solutions and training that are still in use today and has contributed several articles in the areas of IT, project management, IT management. He is an ITIL Certified Service Manager Master.

During his thirty years in Congress (1973-2002), Congressman Gilman was highly respected on both sides of the aisle for his commitment advancing human rights and fighting world hunger. He served as Chairman of the House International Relations Committee (1995-2002) and provided a leading voice for vigorous US-UN engagement. In September 2003, President Bush appointed Congressman Gilman as a Public Delegate to the 58th United Nations General Assembly.