Matt Penner is the Director of Information and Instructional Technology, CCTO, for the Val Verde Unified School District in Perris, California. In this role, he continues to grow a team that is passionate about excellence in service and works with other colleagues around the state to promote the building of successful technology support teams that people love.

Prior to this, he earned his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from California Polytechnic University (Cal Poly) of Pomona, California, in 2002, and he has been a passionate advocate of software development for the last 20 years. He is an officer of the Inland Empire .NET Users' Group and was a frequent presenter at the Microsoft offices in Irvine, California, for the SQL Server 2008 launch and during the Windows 7 Phone launch events in the Inland Empire. He has been a professional small business consultant and still continues to moonlight with software development as and when time permits.

Matt has been a hobbyist graphics developer since Adobe Photoshop 2.0 in 1994 and has been an avid user of Paint.NET for over five years. Paint.NET is one of the few professional-level projects that continues to grow in ability and has a devout fan-following while still remaining free to download and use.

When he is not at work, Matt's other passions are his family. He enjoys spending time with his wife and three children and being involved in their church activities, little league games, music, games, and occasionally playing the prince at his daughter's imaginary castle.