Category: Announcements

We’d like to introduce you to the first group of speakers for WordCamp Baltimore 2017! Stay tuned as we announce all of our speakers over the next few days!

Corey Brown

Corey Brown’s expertise in designing, inventing, building, leading, founding and tweaking successful websites spans more than two decades and a host of site types, from publishing and e-commerce to social platforms and user-generated content.  As a guy who has stared at a computer screen for hours on end since the 1980s (first, a VIC-20), Corey keeps his eyes from crossing by goofing off with his daughters, playing bass and piano, writing music and tinkering with an idea list that gets longer every day.

Paul Taubman II

Paul is an international Speaker, Presenter, and Trainer focusing on website strategy and marketing online. Working full time as an online business owner, Paul speaks internationally and teaches businesses and individuals how to make more money with their websites.

Neha Goyal

Web Developer at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington DC, Neha has been building websites for over a decade. She is a full stack developer, where she specializes in WordPress development. She started developing in Drupal nine years ago and has been building custom WordPress websites for over seven years. In her other life, Neha was a professional wedding planner and blogged about South Asian weddings. Her entrepreneurial ventures have included starting a subscription box business and building an Indian American wedding portal for couples to plan their weddings and also connect with vendors. Neha is passionate about learning about different cultures and is currently obsessed with educating herself about Blockchaining. Her hobbies include bullet journaling, DIY arts & crafts and listening to hip hop music. She grew up in New Delhi, India and moved to the United States for college education. Neha is a Rochester Institute of Technology alum and lives in Northern Virginia with her husband.

Tessa Kriesel

Agency and Community Engineer at Pantheon and Founder of Coders of TMRW, Tessa has been a web developer for over 10 years. She enjoys front-end development but also loves to build sites from start to finish. She started in Joomla back when it was 1.0.x and worked her way into WordPress and Drupal about 7 years ago. She enjoys teaching others to code as well as speaking at conferences and youth events. Tessa is a northern Minnesota native, but now lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and four children – three boys and a baby girl. She loves dogs and enjoys helping local organizations rescue dogs in her free time.

Laura Byrne Cristiano

Laura started her first WordPress site back in March 2006. Since then, she’s created/written for over twenty WordPress sites mostly in the areas of education and entertainment. Aside from her her love of WordPress, Laura is also an Anglophile, avid traveler, theater lover, fantasy junkie, and occasional actor. She currently writes for Hypable.com and does freelance marketing and social media work.

Drew Poland

Drew Poland is a freelance WordPress developer in the Baltimore area specializing in custom theme design & development. He is also a regular WordCamp speaker.

David Kees

By day, David Dashifen Kees is a mild-mannered programmer living in Alexandria, VA working remotely for the Engineering IT Shared Services unit within the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. By night… he’s pretty much the same thing. Programming since the sixth grade, Dash has been writing web applications in academia since 1998 and evangelizing WordPress at Illinois since 2010. As the primary WordPress developer for the College of Engineering and a member of the University’s “Publish @ Illinois” team running the campus-wide WordPress Network, he’s been a driving force behind WordPress adoption within the college and on campus. He programs with tabs, uses two spaces after a period, and you can pry the Oxford comma from his cold, dead hands.

Kristina Romero

I’m a website developer, mompreneur and passionate advocate for WordPress. I work with small businesses and entrepreneurs through my company KR Media & Designs to build amazing websites to grow their business. As a front-end developer in the Washington D.C area, I’ve had the opportunity to work with the Coca-Cola Company and Food Network on various WordPress projects. I’m also proud to be a WP Elevation Business Coach and partner in RockStar Empires that helps entrepreneurs learn how to take their business online.

Tim Sisson

Tim loves WordPress and enjoys leveraging it to meet businesses needs. I lead the Customer Community Team at BoldGrid. I’m passionate about SEO, internet marketing, and e-commerce. When I’m not tinkering with WordPress I spend my time on adventures with my awesome wife Lisa, three daughters Autumn, Stella, & Petra.

Sal Ferrarello

Sal started programming on a Commodore 64 when he was eight years old. He went on to become a web developer and educator specializing in WordPress. Sal’s past also includes work as a beach photographer, magician/juggler, and high school calculus teacher. He contributes to WordPress core, the Genesis framework, and various other open source projects. Sal writes regularly about programming at https://salferrarello.com/.

Aaron Brazell

Aaron is a Senior Back End developer for Modern Tribe. Previously, he worked as a Senior Web Engineer for 10up. He has over 10 years of WordPress industry experience, including assorted contributions to core. When not working on WordPress, he is hanging with his two dogs in Canton, exploring nightlife or watching soccer.

We are excited to announce Aaron Campbell will be our opening presenter at WordCamp Baltimore 2017! Aaron will dig into the topic of The Future: Why Open Matters.

The internet is the single most effective information sharing tool in all of history. We can build on the work and progress of others in a completely unprecedented way. The implications for the progress of humanity are both serious and exciting! But it’s also in danger. Find out why he thinks open systems and net neutrality will steer our future or how the lack of them will ruin it.

Aaron Campbell

Aaron is the WordPress Security Team lead, has been a regular contributor to WordPress for more than ten years, and is currently funded by GoDaddy to work full time on the WordPress open source project. He has over seventeen years of web development experience and worked with clients ranging from small local businesses to Google, Yahoo, Disney, and Harvard. He’s been called both a coffee snob and a beer snob, but considers both to be compliments. When not buried in code, he enjoys spending time with his wife and son, riding his motorcycle, and reading sci-fi/fantasy books.

Make sure to grab your ticket today so you don’t miss what is sure to be an amazing presentation to open WordCamp Baltimore from the WordPress Security Team Lead.

As you may have heard, WordCamp Baltimore is set for October 14th and 15th this year. That’s the second Saturday and Sunday in October. Like last year’s event, we’re holding our WordCamp at the UMBC Institute of Marine & Environmental Technology (IMET) located on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Details on location and parking are available here.

Tickets on Sale Friday!

TICKETS for WordCamp Baltimore 2017 go on sale July 21st, 2017 starting at 10:00am (EST). The cost will be $40 for two inspiring days of learning and sharing. The cost includes a tasty lunch each day, a social event on Saturday evening, some cool swag and all the coffee you can drink.

Speak at WordCamp Baltimore 2017

We know the WordPress community is rich with varied experiences. WordCamp Baltimore is a great opportunity to share your story with a wider WordPress audience. We are accepting speaker submissions through July 21st. Learn more about speaking here.

Sponsor WordCamp Baltimore 2017

Does your organization love WordPress and the community that surrounds it? Sponsorship is a great way to support the Baltimore WordPress community and to spread the word about the great products or services your company offers. With options starting at just $150, there is an opportunity for every organization. You can learn more about sponsorship opportunities here.

Volunteer at WordCamp Baltimore 2017

We are also looking for a team of friendly volunteers. Whether you’re new to the WordPress community or a seasoned pro, there are important roles to be played in helping to make WordCamp events successful. Please consider giving some of your time and talent back to the community. Learn more about volunteering here.

We are looking forward to having a great WordCamp Baltimore this year. We hope to see you there. You can always get the most accurate information from our website. And follow us on Twitter (@WordCampBalt) if you want to engage in the buzz leading up to the event.

Sincerely,
Your 2017 WordCamp Baltimore Organizing Team
Wes, Andrew, Angelina, Aaron, Alexander, Rachel, Steve

We’re looking for your input to help make WordCamp Baltimore 2017 a fantastic resource for the WordPress community here in Baltimore.

If you could take a few moments to complete our survey, we’d really appreciate it. We’ll dig into your familiarity with WordPress, what you’d want to take away from WordCamp Baltimore and your thoughts on Baltimore.

Link: WordCamp Baltimore 2017 Survey