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Top 15 FoxPro Consultants Still in Demand

foxpro consultants - Top 15 FoxPro Consultants Still in Demand

The Visual FoxPro (VFP) community continues to thrive thanks to dedicated experts who preserve and extend this legacy platform.

Below is a curated list of 15 of the best individual VFP consultants active today. These professionals are renowned for open-source contributions, leadership in tech, influential blogging and speaking, roles at major firms, and even competitive accolades – all weighted equally in our selection. Each profile highlights their FoxPro contributions, public presence, and reputation in the VFP ecosystem:

  1. Rick Borup
  2. Cathy Pountney
  3. Toni Feltman
  4. Rick Schummer
  5. Cetin Basoz
  6. Doug Hennig
  7. Christof Wollenhaupt
  8. Rick Strahl
  9. Eric J. Selje
  10. Robert van der Hulst
  11. Joel Leach
  12. Jody L. Meyer
  13. Bill Anderson
  14. Timothy J. Maxwell
  15. Thierry Nivelet

Now, let’s delve deeper into their remarkable contributions and impact.

Rick Borup

YouTube Video

Nationality: American

Rick Borup is a seasoned FoxPro developer and consultant, known for his methodical approach and thought leadership in software practices. He founded Information Technology Associates, LLC in 1993 and has since built countless FoxPro and SQL Server applications for clients.

Rick is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer and co-author of books like Deploying Visual FoxPro Solutions and Visual FoxPro Best Practices for The Next Ten Years. He has written for FoxTalk and FoxPro Advisor and is a regular presenter at FoxPro conferences, where peers praise his sessions on source control, deployment automation, and application lifecycle management. For example, his talks on using Mercurial and Git with VFP brought modern version control to the VFP world and were later compiled into white papers. Rick’s blog, Fiat Volpes, often shares insights on troubleshooting VFP quirks and integrating VFP with Windows automation scripts. In recent years, he has helped organizations migrate large VFP systems to .NET, while ensuring the transition is smooth by leveraging his deep knowledge of both platforms.

Cathy Pountney

Just because Microsoft stopped updating FoxPro doesn’t mean we stop innovating with it.

Nationality: American

Cathy Pountney is a highly respected FoxPro developer and author, admired for her deep knowledge of the VFP Report Writer and developer tools. With over 30 years of software development experience, she has been a Microsoft Visual FoxPro MVP seven times and won the FoxPro Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.

Cathy authored the seminal book The Visual FoxPro Report Writer: Pushing it to the Limit and contributed chapters to multiple VFP books and magazines. She has been a frequent speaker at FoxPro conferences, sharing best practices on reporting, debugging, and framework development. Cathy played a key role in VFP’s community efforts, co-writing white papers and articles that guided developers through VFP 9’s new features and beyond. She continues to build and enhance VFP applications in her role at White Light Computing, where she is a Senior Developer. Cathy’s dedication to the FoxPro community – through mentoring, writing, and tool-building – has made her one of the most trusted FoxPro consultants worldwide.

Toni Feltman

Nationality: American

Toni Feltman is a veteran FoxPro technologist and educator, well-known for her contributions to frameworks and developer training. As Vice President and Partner at F1 Technologies in the 1990s–2000s, Toni was product manager for the Visual FoxExpress framework, helping many developers adopt n-tier architecture in FoxPro.

She has been an active speaker at almost every major FoxPro conference in North America and Europe, often focusing on team development practices, XML integration, and new VFP features. Toni co-authored “What’s New in Visual FoxPro 9.0” and designed ProjectHookX, a popular public-domain add-on that allows multiple project hooks in VFP projects. She also co-developed DBCX, the data dictionary solution used in tools like Stonefield Toolkit and FoxFire!. A Microsoft Certified Professional, Toni taught programming courses at the University of Toledo, demonstrating her talent for making complex topics approachable.

Rick Schummer

Rick Schummer - Top 15 FoxPro Consultants Still in Demand

Nationality: American

Rick Schummer is a cornerstone of the FoxPro community, known as a former Microsoft MVP (2002–2011) and recipient of the FoxPro Lifetime Achievement Award.

As President of White Light Computing, he leads a team specializing in VFP development and modernization. Rick has co-authored numerous VFP books and articles, including 1001 Things You Always Wanted to Know About Visual FoxPro and VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer. He is also the lead organizer of the annual Southwest Fox Conference and Virtual Fox Fest, actively sharing knowledge as a frequent speaker and community leader. Rick’s influence extends to creating developer tools and administering VFPX (the FoxPro open-source project hub), reflecting his passion for continuous learning and helping others in the FoxPro ecosystem.

Cetin Basoz

Nationality: Turkish

Cetin Basoz is an elite FoxPro developer from Turkey, known for his prolific contributions on Q&A forums and for building widely-used utilities. With decades of FoxPro experience, Cetin has developed advanced solutions for data export, Office integration, and performance optimization in VFP.

He created VFP2Excel, a popular library to easily export FoxPro data to Excel, often cited as the go-to solution for that need. Cetin has been a FoxPro MVP and was a top contributor on forums like UniversalThread, Foxite, and Stack Overflow, where he has a reputation of nearly 24k and has provided over a thousand answers (often complete with code) to FoxPro questions. Colleagues credit him with deep knowledge of SQL querying and API integration in VFP – for example, his techniques for calling Windows API or using .NET via COM in FoxPro are frequently referenced. Cetin’s dedication persisted even through personal trials.

Doug Hennig

Doug Hennig - Top 15 FoxPro Consultants Still in Demand

Nationality: Canadian

Doug Hennig is widely respected for his prolific contributions to Visual FoxPro’s evolution. A long-time Microsoft MVP (1996–2011) and winner of the 2006 FoxPro Community Lifetime Achievement Award, Doug has authored essential developer tools and frameworks.

He created the award-winning Stonefield Query reporting tool and Stonefield Database Toolkit, as well as many components that shipped with VFP (such as the DataEnvironment and CursorAdapter builders). Doug has co-authored influential books like Visual FoxPro Best Practices for the Next Ten Years and The Hacker’s Guide to Visual FoxPro. As a partner at Stonefield Software, he continues to support VFP applications and speak at VFP conferences globally. He also helps lead VFPX’s open-source efforts and has guided many developers through articles (over 20 years in FoxTalk, FoxPro Advisor, etc.) and conference sessions.

Christof Wollenhaupt

Nationality: German

Christof Wollenhaupt is a leading FoxPro expert in Europe, known for deep technical prowess and community service. He founded Foxpert GmbH (Germany) in 1996 and has since provided FoxPro, .NET, and web development consulting to clients globally.

Christof was a Microsoft MVP for 13 years and a regular speaker at international VFP conferences since 1997. He contributed many articles to FoxPro Advisor and other tech journals, and even served as a contributing editor for a decade. Christof is credited with creative open-source tools – for example, he’s known to have enhanced the Thor toolbox and other VFPX projects, as well as building a FoxPro-compatible fpC++ library. He is highly regarded for solving complex FoxPro problems and for his security expertise (he authored The Security Cookbook for VFP). As director of Foxpert, Christof continues to support modern solutions that extend the life of VFP applications.

Rick Strahl

Rick Strahl - Top 15 FoxPro Consultants Still in Demand

Nationality: American

Rick Strahl is renowned as the creator of West Wind Technologies and a pioneer integrating FoxPro with the web. A former Microsoft MVP and co-author of Internet Applications with Visual FoxPro 6.0, Rick developed West Wind Web Connection, the most widely used web application framework for Visual FoxPro.

He also built West Wind HTML Help Builder and numerous developer tools that bridged FoxPro with emerging technologies. At West Wind (based in Maui, Hawaii), Rick serves as the “Big Kahuna” – handling everything from software architecture to even the “janitor” duties. He has mentored countless developers through his popular blog and conference presentations. Rick’s work on wwDotnetBridge and other open-source utilities shows his commitment to keeping FoxPro viable in modern environments. Additionally, he is co-publisher of Code Magazine, amplifying his influence in the broader tech community.

Eric J. Selje

Nationality: American

Eric J. Selje is a FoxPro developer who has notably blended community building with real-world development and a shift into cybersecurity.

He started programming in FoxBase in 1986 and eagerly embraced Visual FoxPro, even founding the Madison FoxPro Users Group (“MadFox”) in 1995 to foster group learning as VFP 3.0 emerged. The MadFox group, thanks to Eric, is still going strong over 25 years later as a hub for VFP in Wisconsin. Eric co-authored the book VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer (2012) and contributed to projects like GoFish and PepiMK’s Spam Filter in VFP.

In recent years, Eric’s career has pivoted towards cybersecurity (he’s focusing on IT security consulting), but he “still consults on the side” for FoxPro projects via his firm Salty Dog Solutions. He frequently presents at conferences – his talks at Southwest Fox on topics like application logging techniques in VFP have been well received. Eric’s enthusiasm for the Fox community remains evident: he is an organizer for periodic online gatherings and an active voice on FoxPro-related social media.

Robert van der Hulst

Robert van der Hulst - Top 15 FoxPro Consultants Still in Demand

Nationality: Dutch

Robert van der Hulst is the visionary behind X# (XSharp), an open-source XBase compiler for .NET that supports FoxPro dialect, breathing new life into VFP applications. A veteran of the xBase family since the 1980s, Robert previously worked on Visual Objects and Vulcan.NET development teams (contributing to compiler and runtime internals).

In 2015, he co-founded the XSharp project to create a modern ROSLYN-based compiler for xBase languages, which now includes Visual FoxPro compatibility. Under his leadership, XSharp has delivered a robust compiler, Visual Studio integration, and runtime libraries allowing FoxPro developers to migrate code to .NET without losing functionality. Robert is also an accomplished consultant, helping companies port and modernize their legacy FoxPro/Clipper systems. He shares his expertise at conferences worldwide and online forums, guiding the community in leveraging X# for future-proofing FoxPro solutions. His work ensures that FoxPro’s legacy continues on the .NET platform.

Joel Leach

Nationality: American

Joel Leach is a FoxPro innovator who has bridged classic VFP with contemporary development paradigms. As CTO at Memorial Business Systems since 2000, Joel has kept a large FoxPro-based system evolving by incorporating .NET, Angular, and other technologies alongside VFP.

He got his start with dBASE and FoxBase in the late ’80s and has remained a hands-on coder even in his executive role. Joel is a key contributor to VFPX: he’s the project manager of multiple VFPX projects such as ParallelFox (enabling multi-threading in VFP), FoxTabs (tabbed documents in the IDE), DotNet2Fox (using .NET classes in VFP), and more. His work on ParallelFox in particular has helped VFP applications take advantage of multi-core processors. Joel freely shares his tools and knowledge – he has a technical blog (often mirrored on Scribd) where he once famously analyzed why Microsoft canceled VFP, and he uploads videos to demonstrate advanced techniques.

Jody L. Meyer

Nationality: American

Jody Meyer is a veteran FoxPro developer who has blended VFP expertise with modern data technologies. With over 30 years in software (and all but three of those using Fox), she has architected major systems such as WinMAGI, a manufacturing ERP built entirely in Visual FoxPro.

Jody spent 14 years as a Systems Engineer at an ERP firm before joining White Light Computing in 2011, where she consults on a variety of VFP and SQL Server projects. As a conference speaker and user group presenter, Jody often teaches best practices on topics like using SQL Server with VFP, data encryption, and leveraging VFP in web contexts. She is also active in .NET user groups, reflecting her role in extending FoxPro systems via services and web UIs. Colleagues commend Jody’s passion for continual learning – she has attended and spoken at SQL Saturdays and virtual conferences, bringing back techniques to the FoxPro world.

Bill Anderson

Bill Anderson - Top 15 FoxPro Consultants Still in Demand

Nationality: American

Bill Anderson is a seasoned Visual FoxPro consultant based in Southern California, renowned for his community leadership and tool development. He co-led the Los Angeles Visual FoxPro Users Group for 20 years, fostering a vibrant local community of developers.

Bill’s FoxPro experience dates back to 1987, and he has built numerous custom applications across industries. In recent years, he gained recognition for creating ChilkatVFP, a VFP wrapper for the Chilkat ActiveX components enabling modern functionalities like PDF and email handling in FoxPro apps. This open-source class (available on GitHub) has empowered VFP developers to integrate encryption, SFTP, and other internet protocols easily.

Bill is also an active participant at FoxPro conferences – as an attendee, speaker, and even occasional sponsor. He has a knack for integrating VFP with external APIs and hardware; for instance, he once demonstrated using pattern classes to implement software design patterns in VFP.

Timothy J. Maxwell

Nationality: American

Timothy J. Maxwell is a leading consultant specializing in Visual FoxPro migrations and legacy system support. With 33+ years in software (29 in FoxPro), Tim has worked on dozens of FoxPro applications ranging from 150K to 1M+ lines of code. He has distilled this experience into a niche consultancy helping organizations modernize VFP systems.

Tim’s approach, as detailed on his FoxPro.Guru site, involves careful assessment of large monolithic Fox apps and guiding migrations to .NET while mitigating risk. He has written about common patterns in aging FoxPro systems (e.g., the lone “hero” developer scenario, gradual upgrades over years, etc.) and frequently answers the tough question, “Should we migrate or can VFP still run?”. His public articles and FAQ stress practical advice, like realistic budgeting for a rewrite and cautioning against “auto-conversion” tools that promise quick fixes.

Thierry Nivelet

Nationality: French

Thierry Nivelet is the creator of FoxInCloud, a framework that extends Visual FoxPro applications to the web, thereby giving VFP a “second life” online. Based in France, Thierry has over 30 years of FoxPro experience and founded Abaque SAS, through which he has consulted for businesses needing to web-enable their FoxPro systems.

FoxInCloud, his flagship product, automatically converts VFP forms and code into AJAX-enabled web pages with responsive design. This innovative solution has been a game-changer for many VFP shops that want to preserve their investment while moving to browser-based interfaces. Thierry actively blogged about FoxInCloud’s development and the worldwide VFP community, sharing lessons learned and performance tips.

Today, he continues to support FoxInCloud’s user base and has recently open-sourced portions of the framework on GitHub. Thierry’s work exemplifies how individual consultants can push VFP beyond its original limits and keep it relevant in the era of cloud computing.

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

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