Our Consultants

MGA takes pride in its ability to place people with the right skills on all the projects it undertakes. The company can do this because it employs a broad range of highly skilled and motivated specialist consultants. Their backgrounds span Operational DBAs, Application DBAs, GUI Designers and Developers, Web Designers and Developers and Backend Developers (PL/SQL, SQL, T/SQL).

MGA consultants are proud of their company's highly successful track record, and enjoy working for a company that places a high value on experience, positive attitudes and motivation to succeed. MGA and its consultants approach both large and small assignments with a high degree of professionalism in the work they perform, and in the way they fit into the client's workplace.

MGA does not undertake assignments with the aim of making MGA services indispensable. Work performed by MGA is clearly documented so that clients can take over from the MGA consultants as seamlessly as possible. Documentation is of the highest quality, and has been checked by external auditors to satisfy all requirements.

Mark Gurry - CEO

Mark Gurry is CEO of Mark Gurry and Associates (MGA) which he founded in 1988. He set MGA up as a specialist company delivering a wide range of Oracle related services. His relationship with Oracle dates back twenty years.

Mark began his computing career in 1978. He gained extensive experience in a wide range of roles including Programmer, Designer, Application Architect, Manager of Computing and Network Services, Senior Database Administrator and Senior Oracle Technical Support Manager.

In 1993, Mark co-authored "Oracle Performance Tuning" with Peter Corrigan. This book has sold over 180,000 copies and is used extensively by Oracle internal staff, and technical staff all over the world. A second edition was published in 1996. The book has since been published in a number of languages including Japanese.

Mark has also produced a pocket reference "Oracle SQL Tuning" which was launched on November 7th 2001, and was the top selling technical book worldwide in June 2003 (as rated by BookPool www.bookpool.com). Read a review of 'Oracle SQL Tuning pocket reference' from 'Select' - the magazine of the Australian Oracle Users Group.

Mark has become well known in the U.S., Australia and Europe through his books, experience and his many presentations to Oracle User Groups. He is frequently called on to provide advice, training and specialist services to companies throughout the world.

Emma Brown - Human Resource Coordinator

Emma has worked as a Team Manager for a leader in telecommunications and has broad knowledge on human resources management. Emma has also worked on IT help desks and other various positions in government, corporate and education sectors.

Emma has completed part Certificate IV in Business - Human Resources and has various other formal qualifications.

Emma is interested in art, including volunteering at a well know gallery, yoga, gardening, bush walking and enjoys travelling the world.

Sarah Garratt - Customer Relationship Manager

Sarah commenced employment with MGA in October 2007 as a Customer Relationship Manager. Her role encompasses managing the relationships with existing MGA clients and ensuring new business is being generated. Prior to joining MGA, Sarah worked as a Contract Manager with an IT Recruitment Company, a position she held for over 6 years. Sarah completed her IT recruitment certification in 2006.

Sarah's interests include reading, water skiing, live music and travel.

Matthew Ridley - Development Manager

Matthew is a key member of the MGA team. He has worked closely with Mark Gurry for almost 5 years in the field of Oracle tuning and development specifically on Oracle environments. Matthew's skills in performance tuning are at a senior DBA/developer level and he has experience working on-site with a large range of clients in Australia, UK and US.

He is the lead developer for our MGA EagleEye performance tuning tool and has managed several large development projects.

Mathew is also heavily involved in replication projects with high expertise in Oracle and SQL Server replication technologies.

He has a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Computer Science and Information Science.

In his spare time, Matthew enjoys watching cartoons and fishing.

Andy Horne - Database Administration Manager

Andy has been in the IT industry for over 21 years and an Oracle DBA for 12 years. Andy's experience with Oracle extends across V6036 up to V10g, and spans a variety of industries - including telecommunications (British Telecom) oil companies (Texaco) banking (ANZ) finance (AXA) government (Dept. of Justice) as well as most recently, a software development house (Hansen Technologies). Andy has used Oracle on various operating systems, mostly Unix (Solaris, HPUX, Linux) and Windows.

Andy has performed a variety of services including conducting site audits and producing recommendation reports, Y2K compliance testing and upgrades, team leading and mentoring, production support, development support and training

Stephen Heys - Senior Oracle Consultant

Stephen is our newest member to the DBA team. He has worked in the IT industry since 1971 and worked with relational databases for 25 years. He is an Oracle Certified Professional with experience in Oracle from version 6 to version 10G. He has worked in a large range of industries including manufacturing (Visy Industries), banking and finance (NAB), telecommunications (Telstra), consulting companies (LogicaCMG), vendors (Wang, Ingres). Stephen also has experience as a team leader and project manager of medium size teams and projects.

Stephen is skilled in performance tuning, capacity planning, database design and data modelling, and how to get the most business benefit out of database technology. Stephen loves listening to a wide range of music and going to live gigs, good food and wine and travelling.

David Bergmeier - Senior Oracle Consultant

David is one of MGA's highly skilled and highly experienced DBAs. David has 17 years IT experience and a Bachelor of Applied Science (Computing). He has spent 10 years working as an Oracle DBA, and has had 11 years of insurance industry experience. Currently based in Melbourne, David has worked in Sydney for 5 years and also spent 7 months working in Malaysia. Since starting at MGA, David has spent most of his time onsite at the National Australia Bank, but has also worked on various other projects.

David has recently become the proud father of Rohan Christopher, and enjoys gazing at the stars as an amateur astronomer and playing the keyboard and saxophone.

Craig Dick - Senior Oracle Consultant

Craig joined MGA in 2008 with 11 years experience as a DBA and is an Oracle 10g Certified Professional.

He has worked in New Zealand, England and Australia for a number of large companies including British Airways, Motorola, Directline Insurance and Foster’s Group.

His areas of expertise are performance tuning and backup and recovery. Craig has honours degree (first class) in Information Science from the University of Otago in New Zealand.

In his spare time Craig enjoys travelling, photography and playing a range of sports.

Priscila Santos - Oracle Consultant

Priscila originally joined MGA as a Junior Oracle Consultant and undertook training from Mark Gurry himself and other senior Oracle consultants. She is now a skilled developer, tester and tuner. Priscila has worked on some of MGA’s major client projects as well as assisting with the development and enhancement of our in-house products

Priscila has a Bachelors degree in Information Technology and Systems Analysis and is currently undertaking her Oracle 10G certification. She has experience in the IT industry covering software implementation, testing and business analyst.

Her interests include playing the piano, arts and all sports in general.

Hari Krishnan - Junior Oracle Consultant

Hari is the latest entrant to the DBA team as Junior Oracle Consultant. He is Oracle certified with four plus years of IT experience. Prior to joining MGA, Hari was a support analyst/Database administrator with LGR Telecommunications and Tata consultancy services.

Hari has a bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a Master's degree in Information Technology from Swinburne University.

Besides listening to music, Hari enjoys playing soccer and hockey. He also takes pleasure in travelling and exploring new places.

Simon Gurry - Network Administrator

Simon commenced with MGA in 2000 and is responsible for all of the network administration. His role encompasses all of MGA's technical support, from managing all of our hardware and software through to setting up MGA's entire IT environment.

Prior to joining MGA, Simon was a train driver and guard for twelve years, and later opened his own computer gaming shop. It was here that he developed his interest in broader information technology and undertook several courses to develop his skills. These include certificates in information technology as well as Oracle specific course such as PL/SQL Fundamentals.