Brett Lonsdale (Co-founder and owner of Lightning Tools) chose to specialise in Microsoft SharePoint when SharePoint 2003 was first launched. Brett had already successfully established a Microsoft SharePoint training company and helped author and teach Microsoft SharePoint developer classes. Later, Brett authored two Microsoft SharePoint books and contributing to many more including the “Developers Guide to the SharePoint Business Data Catalog” and “The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services” books.

In 2007, Brett moved to Florida, and began to create Lightning Tools. Lightning Tools was initially created around a single product which was BDC Meta Man. BDC Meta Man was used worldwide by customers building connections to external data sources. We began to add to our portfolio based on other needs of our customers such as cross site collection rollup, Data Viewer, Discussion Forums, Permissions Management and Charting products.

In 2018, Brett was proud to have been awarded the prestigiousMicrosoft Most Valuable Professional Awardfor his SharePoint community involvement and contributions.

Brett enjoys speaking at SharePoint events worldwide on a variety of SharePoint subjects such as SharePoint Permissions Best Practices, SharePoint Hub Sites, SharePoint Column Formatting, and of course Business Connectivity Services.

“Without the full Lightning Tools team, we couldn’t deliver to our customers our promise. Lightning Tools is proud of the outstanding commitment and skill set of the developers, technical support team, and sales staff”

Brett is based in a small village called Shawell in England where he lives with his wife Sara, 3 amazing children, and an awesome dog.