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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.