Chris Converse
A  graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology with a BFA in graphic design, Chris has evolved into a multimedia designer and developer in the Philadelphia area over the past fifteen years, and has worked in the mediums of print, CD-ROM, websites, animation, DVDs, photography, and package design. Chris brings real world project experience to the conference arena. He showcases work-flows and the integration of the tools to get the job done and meet your deadlines. Chris designs and maintains the InDesign User Group and Acrobat Users websites for Adobe Systems, as well as Adobe ad placement.
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Jori Curry
Jori is an Adobe Certified Expert and Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop. She has been teaching Photoshop since 1995, and using it since version 2.0. In additon to teaching, she has been a Technical Advisor for Macmallin Publishing and a presenter at such conferences as the Creative Suite Conference, the Pixel Vector Conferece. She is the owner and President of Ascend Training in Chicago, which is the host of such user groups as the Chicago Area Adobe User Group, The Chicago InDesign User Group, Let's Create!, and the Ft. Dearborn Photo Forum. Jori has her Bachelor's in Art with an emphasis in Graphic Design from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
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Erica Gamet
Erica Gamet is an InDesign and pre-press trainer with over 20 years’ experience in the pre-press trenches. She regularly contributes to InDesign Magazine and Design Tools Monthly, is the author of The InDesigners Workbook series, and tech edited How To Do Everything with Adobe InDesign CS4 from McGraw-Hill Osborne. Erica is co-owner of Digital Dimensions with her husband, Jeff, and she is the co-chair of the Denver chapter of the Adobe InDesign User Group.
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James Fritz
James graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Wisconsin. After beginning his career designing catalogs and collateral, he started working as a freelance designer for C2 Graphics Productivity Solutions. He was promoted to a full time instructor/designer and subsequently become a Certified Technical Trainer (CTT), Adobe Certified Design Specialist, Adobe Certified Expert (Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat, InCopy) and Quark Recognized Instructor. Recently he joined the adjunct faculty at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. James has spoken at variety of conferences and groups including: the InDesign Conference and AIGA.  ASKMOGO SEARCH: fritz

Ted LoCascio
Ted LoCascio is a professional graphic designer and an expert in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, InDesign, Illustrator, and QuarkXPress. He served as senior designer at KW Media and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals for several years, and has created layouts and designs for many successful software training books, videos, and magazines. He is the author of InDesign CS2 at Your Fingertips, The InDesign Effects Book, and Combining Images with Photoshop Elements. He has contributed articles to Photoshop User magazine, InDesign magazine, and Creativepro.com. Ted has been instructing at InDesign & Creative Suite conferences for years.
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Jim Maivald
Jim Maivald is a graphic designer and consultant who has over 25-years' experience in design & publishing. Jim teaches for Ascend Training, in addition to other clients such as Purina, WorldBook, Grainger and others. He is an Adobe Certified Expert, and teaches InDesign, XML, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat. His course in XML and InDesign has been groundbreaking in bringing the publishing and web development fields together. Jim is the the author of Designer’s Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML and Photoshop Complete, and was the Technical Editor for Personal Publishing/Business Publishing magazine, and the Editor of Design Graphics World Magazine.
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Laurie Ruhlin
Laurie is an Adobe Certified Expert & Adobe Certified Instructor in both InDesign and Illustrator. She is an active user of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop creating brochures, catalogs logos, t-shirt designs and photo collages. From her diverse graphic design freelance work, Laurie brings a wealth of real-world knowledge into the classroom. As an instructor at Ascend Training in Chicago, she truly enjoys teaching both the basics to the emerging designer as well as tips and tricks to the advanced power users in both InDesign and Illustrator. She has spoken at numerous events such as the HOW Conference, the Vector Conference, & the Creative Suite Conference.
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James Wamser
James, a Senior Training Specialist at Sells Printing Company, is an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) Print Specialist with over 16 years of experience in the graphic arts industry. James provides training and technical support for Sells' customers as well as its prepress department. James has been working with Adobe InDesign prior to the release of version 1.0, and is an InDesign instructor at Waukesha County Technical College. He has spoken at multiple InDesign and Creative Suite Conferences and events.
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Brian Wood
Brian Wood is a seasoned web developer and web/print technology trainer. An Adobe Certified Instructor in Acrobat 9 Pro, Illustrator CS4, Dreamweaver CS4, InDesign CS3 and Photoshop CS3, Brian has authored several training books, including "InDesign CS2 Hands-On-Training," "Illustrator CS5 Classroom in a Book", and others, all published by Peachpit Press. He has also authored online training videos for Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, Expression Web and more. Brian provides corporate training to companies nationwide, and is an active developer. He co-owns AskBrianWood.com, BrianWoodTraining.com, and has a video blog, BrianWoodTips.com.
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