Thomas M. Coughlin is the Founder and President of consulting firm, Coughlin Associates. Tom has over 35 years of experience in the data storage industry as a working engineer and high level technical manager. In addition to regular technical and management consulting projects, he is the publisher of many reports covering technology and applications for digital storage devices and systems and writes a regular blog on digital storage topics for Forbes.com. He has many published papers, reports, and articles and is a frequent contributor to the IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine where he is also an Associate Editor. He has six patents on magnetic recording and related technologies. Tom is the founder and organizer of the annual Storage Visions Conference and the Creative Storage Conference. Tom is a senior member of the IEEE and has held many volunteer positions in the IEEE, including Director of IEEE Region 6 and Vice President of Operations and Planning for the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society. He is also a member of APS, AVS, SNIA, TCG, and SMPTE. Tom has a BS in Physics and an MSEE from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan. For more information on Coughlin Associates go to www.tomcoughlin.com. For more information on the Storage Visions Conference go to www.storagevisions.com. For more on the Creative Storage Conference go to www.creativestorage.org.