Colin Yates is a J2EE principal architect who specializes in web-based development. He has been a freelance consultant for the past three years and has worked in a number of environments, both structured and chaotic. Since graduating with a software engineering degree in 1997, he has held a number of positions, including development lead, principal systems engineer, mentor, and professional trainer. His principal skill set includes mentoring others, architecting complex problems into manageable solutions, and optimizing development processes. Colin was first introduced to the Spring Framework in January 2003 by his mentors, Peter Den Haan and David Hewitt, and he has never looked back. After a couple of years using the Spring and Hibernate technology stack to good effect, in May 2005 he became one of the early adopters of Spring Web Flow, finally finding the missing item in the web development toolbox. A self-confessed addict of the green bar that comes from following test-driven development and XP, Colin regularly frustrates new team members by introducing a continuous build environment. When not hanging around the Spring support forums (http://forum.springframework.org), Colin can be found out walking with his wife and two dogs, practicing martial arts, attending his local church, or preparing for the arrival of his first child.
