Viscosity Presenters

Charles Kim

CEO & Co-Founder Viscosity
Oracle Ace Director

Charles Kim is a co-founder and CEO of Viscosity North America, an Oracle ACE Director, and a VMware vExpert. Charles is an Oracle Certified DBA, a Certified RAC Expert and a Certified Exadata Implementation Specialist. Charles specializes in Exadata, RAC, and Virtualization (VMware and Oracle VM) and authored over 9 books:

Oracle Database 11g New Features for DBA Developers
Linux Recipes for Oracle DBAs
Oracle Data Guard 11g Handbook
Virtualize Business Critical Oracle Databases
Oracle Exadata Exadata’s Handbook
Hadoop As A Service
Oracle ASM 12c Pocket Reference Guide

Charles holds certifications in Oracle, VMware, Red Hat Linux, and Microsoft and has over 23 years of Oracle experience. Charles sat on the panel of oracle experts at VM World and Oracle OpenWorld for virtualization and Linux. Charles was one of the founding members of the virtualization SIG that launched in 2011 at Oracle OpenWorld. Charles is currently the Vice President of the Cloud Computing SIG for the IOUG.

Jerry Ward

COO and Head of Applications Viscosity

Jerry Ward has built up and lead the applications side of Viscosity North America since its conception in 2012. He serves on board of the Emerging Tech Special Interest Group at multiple Oracle conferences across the country. He is passionate about what tech can do for communities, and he leads emerging tech sessions and conversations targeted around travel, hospitality, pharmaceuticals, finance and more.

Jerry has served as a consulting Architect for the VHA, Kellogg Brown and Root, Invesco, Fidelity National Financial, Dresser Rand, Ericsson, Nortel Networks, and the Human Genome Sequencing Center (BCM). Jerry has worked with Oracle technology since 1991, including Oracle database version 6+ and Oracle Applications version 9+.

He has been featured in the Houston Chronicle, Venice Magazine, 002 Houston, KXAN Austin, Tyler Morning News, Gulfscapes Magazine, and other business publications.

Rich Niemiec

CIO Viscosity
Oracle Ace Director

Rich Niemiec is the current Chief Innovation Officer of Viscosity North America. Rich is an Oracle Ace Director, a world renowned IT Expert, and was a co-founder and the CEO of TUSC, a Chicago-based systems integrator of Oracle-based business solutions started in 1988. Rich has served as President of Rolta TUSC and Rolta EICT.

Rich is the past President of the International Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and the current President of the Midwest Oracle Users Group (MOUG). Rich has architected and tuned many Fortune 500 systems over the past 25 years.

His experience in data processing ranges from teaching to consulting, with emphasis in database administration, performance tuning, project management and technical education. Rich is one of six originally honored worldwide Oracle Certified Masters and advised Oracle development from time to time. In 2017, he authored the Oracle “Oracle12c Performance Tuning Tips & Techniques,” an update of his previous 4 Oracle best sellers on Oracle8i, 9i, 10g, and 11i Performance Tuning. Rich was inducted into the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame in 1998.

Craig Shallahamer

Applied AI Scientist Viscosity & OraPub

Craig is a long time Oracle DBA specializing in predictive analytics, machine learning and Oracle performance tuning. Craig is a researcher, blogger, consultant, author, an enthusiastic conference speaker, passionate teacher and an Oracle ACE Dir.

Sean Scott

Principal Consultant Viscosity
Oracle Ace

Sean is an Oracle ACE, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Certified Architect Professional, and Oracle Autonomous Database Certified Specialist. He's a Managing Principal Consultant with Viscosity North America where he designs highly available and scalable databases, leads database modernization and migration projects, and coaches database teams on their journeys toward DevOps and automation. Sean is a featured speaker at user group conferences and events around the world and author of the upcoming Apress book, "Running Oracle on Docker" scheduled for release in 2022.

Gary Gordhmer

Principal Consultant Viscosity
Oracle Ace

Managing Principal Consultant at Viscosity North America.

Gary Gordhamer has spent much of his career focusing on enterprise application landscape and business process digitization. His technical experiences range from Oracle e-Business suite, middleware, database and related technologies for the past 29 years. His professional background covers many industries including healthcare, manufacturing, utilities, and government. He is an active member of the QUEST IOUG Database & Technology Community, serving on the advisory board. Gary is an Oracle ACE associate, and frequent presenter at Oracle OpenWorld and User Group Conferences.

Erik Espinoza

APEX Director Viscosity

Erik is the founder and CEO of our Guatemalan office. Partnering with Viscosity North America since 2014 as a consultant, he assisted in roles from Senior Software Engineer, to Solutions Architect, to now the Director of Apex and Development for all of Viscosity. After studying computer science for several years, Erik started programming for a local bank in Guatemala. He then got an opportunity to work for Xerox at 19. Xerox took him on a life-changing training course in the U.S. that helped grow and develop his English speaking ability, American business culture, and, most notably, his programming knowledge. He left Xerox in a leap of faith to consult with a start-up company in Guatemala that helped him provide him experience and reach new clients in consulting, including Tigo. This opportunity led him to connect to Viscosity North America!

Emanuel Cifuentes

Solution Architect Viscosity

I started professional software development at age 16, right out of High School. I got to work on all kinds of software for banking, that gave me a good understanding of privacy and security. I then moved on to a startup environment to develop web and mobile applications. The startup had a lot to do with geolocation, tracking, and was really focused on usability. A few years ago I started consulting for Viscosity North America in subjects related to Oracle, specifically the Oracle Database and Oracle APEX. I've been involved in many projects in the Food, Oil and Gas and Healthcare industries.

Luis Flores

Senior Software Developer Viscosity

I have been a lover of technology for as long as I can remember, I always try to look for the best way to solve a problem or a new process, and if I don't have the solution, I'll do my best to find a solution for it.

I have been working around the application development space since 2013; I started working on Oracle Application Express in 2018 and always looked at the best ways to leverage all their functionality in our favor to develop great and easy-to-use applications.

Julio Ayapan

DBA Viscosity
Oracle ACE Associate

Julio is a computer engineer and has a master’s degree in IT project management.

Starting as a DBA in 2012, he has been working with multiple virtualizations, software development and database technologies related with different industries such as telecom, banking, manufacturing, print media and retail. Having expertise in various RDBMS systems, he become an Oracle Certified Professional 11g in 2015, in 2016 he become an Oracle Certified Professional 12c and a Oracle Certified Expert for Data Guard and RAC and Grid Infrastructure administration.

He is an expert in many areas of database administration, Analytics, and Operating systems including high-performance tuning, high availability, replication, backup, and recovery and recently in cloud technologies becoming an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Certified Architect and a Microsoft Azure Certified Database Administrator since 2019.

In 2014, Julio joined to the Oracle User Group in Guatemala, group to which he belongs and collaborates with several activities. He actively participates in Oracle-related forums such as OTN Latin-America and maintains a Personal Technology blog on http://oraclehomegt.blogspot.com

You can find Julio as @jayapangt on Twitter and on the OTN Latam official Blog.

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