Ohio LinuxFest Staff

Vance has been using Linux since 1997 and was active in the Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group from 2003 to 2017. In addition to general desktop use, he has an interest in system and network administration. Vance currently lives in Pittsburgh and works in quality assurance for safety equipment. Vance first began volunteering with Ohio LinuxFest in 2006. He worked on producing audio recordings of sessions starting in 2009, served as Speaker Chair for the 2014 through 2017 conferences, and was Birds of a Feather Chair from 2018 to 2020. He took on the Conference Chair role in 2021.

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Beth Lynn currently lives in Pittsburgh and works as Seniors System Engineer. She has over twenty years experience in managing, building and collaborating with teams within Free Software Expertise in GNU/Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, Ubuntu, and SUSE. From 2002 to 2011 Beth Lynn led the Western PA Linux Users Group, which began at Carnegie Mellon University.

Beth Lynn first came to OLF as an attendee in 2003. She immediately signed up to help at future conferences. When a mix up occurred in the venue early in the OLF history, Beth contacted Jon “maddog” Hall and others for help, which saved that year’s conference (close to the date of the event). Due to her longevity with OLF over the years she has been a speaker, conference chairperson, and fundraiser. When the original conference chairpersons retired from leadership roles, Beth Lynn stepped up to keep the conference running smoothly as the Director. In 2007 Beth applied and defended 501(c)(3) non-profit status for the organization.

Beth Lynn Eicher is passionate about the ideals of FOSS and in growing community across the country and world in this movement. She attends other Linux- FOSS conferences and is well known across the country. In 2013 she was asked to speak at the Free Software Foundation Conference held at Harvard University on the topic of “Closing the Digital Divide”. There she reported on the successful deployment of 100 Edubuntu PCs to schools in Ghana, Africa that served mostly orphaned children. Beth Lynn went to Ghana with a team from Computereach, training in networking, pc repair, the GNU/Linux command-line, and the Edubuntu desktop environment.

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Rafeeq manages the Ohio LinuxFest Institute (OLFI) professional training sessions and is an active member of the information risk management community. Rafeeq is based in Columbus and works as Executive Consulting Partner with Verizon global professional services. Rafeeq is author of many books including Linux and Information Security. In addition to contributing to the industry, he frequently writes on his personal blog site. Rafeeq has been in leading positions with multiple successful startups building business using Linux and other open source software technologies.

In addition to numerous industry certifications, Rafeeq holds bachelors and masters degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering and MBA in Marketing. He can be reached via email or at Twitter @rafeeq_rehman.

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Michael Schultheiss has attended every Ohio LinuxFest since 2005 and began volunteering on the conference staff in 2008. He currently serves as Registration Chair, runs the technology infrastructure for the Ohio LinuxFest and serves as the Treasurer of the Ohio LinuxFest Corporation. Michael currently works as a Senior Security Analyst for a large Indiana based healthcare company, providing SecDevOps expertise. He also serves as President of the Central Indiana Linux Users Group and President of Software in the Public Interest (SPI). Mike is a Debian Developer and helps run the infrastructure for SPI.

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Susan lives in Pittsburgh, PA and is an adjunct professor of Nursing Informatics and Health Technology. She is involved with social media management for several nonprofits. Susan’s involvement with OLF goes back many years, first as an attendee and volunteer. In the 2010 and 2011 Fest Susan presented and led a Medical Track. More on Susan’s experience with medical open source is seen here. In October 2013, she became the Social Media- Community Manager. Her web site is http://www.streetsmartnurse.com/.

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Sam has taken the lead on streaming the conference starting in 2022, greatly helping us adjust to a hybrid format. He has since taken on responsibility for managing AV for the entire conference. Sam is a videographer who enjoys live event production. He was introduced to Linux by a roommate in 2000 to self-host a band website using Slackware. When the band broke up, Sam moved into audio production and then video production. He currently also volunteers with Columbus Fashion Week and Creative Mornings Columbus and has shot or directed video for events including Highball Halloween, The Deerasic Classic, and The Ohio Association for Justice Annual Conference. Sam’s short films have received awards or recognition from lomography.com, The Greater Columbus Arts Council, and The Columbus 48 Hour Film Project. Also, he has licensed footage to MTV, NBC, and National Geographic. Sam likes to share experiences to the viewer and believes that accessibility to events is an important function of video production.

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Warner Moore is a strategic executive leader and manager with a background in technology and information security. He has focused his career in working with entrepreneurial growth organizations where technology is their business and product. In 2018, Warner founded the strategy firm Gamma Force. Through Gamma Force, Warner serves as a fractional executive and advises startups to scale them through concept and growth phases.

Warner is passionate about culture, innovation, and community. His commitment to these values is demonstrated through his work leading organizations such as OLF Conference, LOPSA Columbus, Toastmasters, and Tech Community Coalition.

A long time attendee of Ohio LinuxFest (OLF), Warner began working with the OLF in 2012 by founding the Career Track. Following the 2013 conference, he assumed the role of Conference Chair, a role he held through the 2020 OLF. In 2016, he joined the OLF Board and in 2019 assumed the role as Vice President.

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Jon “maddog” Hall is the Board Chair of the Linux Professional Institute, Co-founder of Caninos Loucos, the President of Project Cauã and the President of Linux International.

Since 1969 Mr. Hall has been a programmer, systems designer, systems administrator, product manager, technical marketing manager, educator, author, CEO and Consultant.

Mr. Hall has worked for companies like Western Electric Corporation, Aetna Life and Casualty, Bell Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corporation, VA Linux Systems, IBM, SGI, Linaro and Futura Networks (Campus Party) as well as being a private consultant.

Mr Hall worked on Unix systems since 1980 and Linux systems since 1994, when he first met Linus Torvalds and recognized the commercial importance of FOSS.

Mr. Hall has taught at Hartford State Technical College, Merrimack College and Daniel Webster College.

Mr. Hall is the author of many magazine and newspaper articles, many presentations and one book, “Linux for Dummies”. He writes a monthly article for Linux Pro Magazine.

Mr. Hall is on the advisory board of the University of Sao Paulo’s Centro Interdisciplinar Em Tecnologias Interativas (CITI).

Mr. Hall traveled to over 100 countries speaking on the benefits of FOSS, and is pleased to have worked with the Ohio Linux Fest almost since its inception.

Mr. Hall received his BS in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University (1973), and his MSCS from RPI in Troy, New York (1977).