Steve Hoberman is a trainer, consultant, and writer in the field of data modeling. He balances the formality and precision of data modeling with the realities of building software systems with severe time, budget, and people constraints. Steve focuses on templates, tools, and guidelines to reap the benefits of data modeling with minimal investment.

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Queens College and completing a Master of Science in Information Networking at Carnegie Mellon University, Steve joined Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) in 1990 and started his data modeling career on an information engineering project. He was an analyst and data modeler on a team building an enterprise data model for the entire telephone industry. This project offered broad exposure to many cutting-edge disciplines of the 90’s – object-oriented modeling techniques, Compuer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools, and first-generation metadata repositories.

Building on the Bellcore foundation, Steve developed an interest in the human side of data modeling and the “next generation” techniques. In 1994 he went to work on Wall Street, performing data modeling work for many financial applications. Many of his “do it fast but right” modeling techniques came from the high-pressure projects of Wall Street. In 1997 Steve joined Mars, Inc. as their Data Warehouse Architect. During his nine-year tenure at Mars, Steve filled a variety of roles including Lead Data Modeler, Developer Team Lead, and SAP Functional Analyst. Each of these roles provided opportunities to grow and evolve his unique, experience-based approach to data modeling.

Steve taught his first data modeling class in 1992 and has taught over 10,000 people data modeling and business intelligence techniques since then. He has presented at over 50 international conferences in every format from short presentations to full-day classes, and has been selected to deliver keynote addresses at major industry conferences in North America and in Europe.

Steve is a columnist and frequent contributor to industry publications. He is the author of several data modeling books including Data Modeling Made Simple, Data Modeler’s Workbench, and Data Modeling for the Business. With an interest in building a data modeler’s community, he founded the Design Challenges group, which today boasts more than 3,000 data management practitioners who tackle monthly data modeling puzzles. (You can sign up for his Design Challenges at www.stevehoberman.com) Steve is an innovator in data modeling and the inventor of the Data Model Scorecard®, which has quickly become the standard for data model quality.

Steve Hoberman can be reached at me@stevehoberman.com