Speakers

Adam Warner

Adam W. Warner discovered WordPress in 2005 and has been working within the community ever since. To feed his entrepreneurial spirit, he founded several WordPress-focused businesses that provide education, plugins and consulting services for online business owners. He is a true WordPress Evangelist in spirit and personality, and that happens to have been his job title when joining SiteLock.com. Today, he’s the Open Source Community Manager there, continuing to bring his experience and knowledge of the web, business, and security to many other communities. Adam is also passionate about his family, robots, and of course Life, the Universe and Everything.

Antti Koskenrouta

Antti is the principal and owner of Mukava, a Washington, DC-based WordPress agency. He spends his days building custom WordPress sites and plugins, and advising clients in their web strategy.

In addition to WordPress work, Antti stays busy by running his own websites and making hand-popped kettle corn and roasting coffee in a Roanoke, VA -based company he co-founded, called Two Roosters. He enjoys walks in the park with his two dogs and an occasional gin&tonic.

Arthur Smith & June Chang

June Chang is a graphic designer and artist, and heads a one-person design studio specializing in branding, inbound marketing, web design, and old-fashioned drawing and painting. She creates fun brands for clients around the world, and also does marketing and graphic design for Econometrica In Bethesda, MD.

Arthur Smith is a writer, digital producer, and blogger based in Washington DC, working in education, arts and humanities, health care, and government content. He also does business development and video production for Vox Television in Watertown, MA.

Christie Chirinos

Christie Chirinos is one of the co-owners and the business development lead at Caldera Labs, a WordPress plugin company best known for its popular contact form plugin, Caldera Forms. Christie started making websites at the age of 14, and before joining Caldera Labs did everything from selling items on eBay to leading website re-launch projects for major nonprofit organizations – on WordPress, of course. Christie received her Master of Business Administration degree from Florida State University, and is currently based out of New York City.

Corey Brown

Corey Brown is the Director of Web Services at Knucklepuck (Knucklepuck acquired his agency in 2018). He offers expertise from over 23 years of designing, inventing, building, leading and tweaking successful websites spanning publishing, e-commerce, social platforms and user-generated content. He’s also a WordPress evangelist and enthusiast, working exclusively with that platform as a CMS.

Corey is the CEO and founder of No Treble (notreble.com), now the most read magazine for bassists, online or off. No Treble reaches over 200,000 people a month, with over 220,000 Facebook fans.

Corey was the COO and cofounder of Squidoo.com, the popular user-generated content platform he started with Seth Godin in 2005. Squidoo consistently ranked in the top 200 sites for traffic in the U.S, and at one point reached the rank of #35. HubPages acquired Squidoo in August 2014.

From 1998-2003, Corey was the CEO of Solutions Factory, a web strategy, custom content, design, and development firm based in the Washington, DC area. Solutions Factory worked with companies including Raytheon, Time Warner Cable and Columbia Energy Group on a wide range of web-based initiatives.

During the go-nuts-now, make-money-later 1990’s, Corey still managed to run the highly profitable web division of Another Universe, where he designed and led development on a contextual commerce platform. He also led business development on e-commerce partnerships with The Sci-Fi Channel, Marvel, and Sony. Corey was one of the first to use Paul Graham’s Viaweb, soon generating the highest sales of all Viaweb stores.

Corey has been staring at a computer screen for hours on end since the 1980s (first, a VIC-20). To keep his eyes from crossing, he spends time goofing off with his daughters and granddaughter, playing bass and piano, and tinkering with his always growing list of new ideas.

Cory Miller

Cory Miller (that’s me) is a former newspaper journalist turned full-time entrepreneur. In 2008, he started iThemes, which builds web design software and offers cutting-edge web design training for thousands of customers around the globe.

Named the 7th fastest growing company in Oklahoma City in 2011 by the Metro 50, iThemes employs over 25+ people, with headquarters in Edmond, Oklahoma.

In 2011, he co-founded The Div, Inc, a nonprofit tech foundation aimed at inspiring and training the next generation of web developers through its kid’s program, Div Jr.

He is the co-author of WordPress All-in-One for Dummies (Wiley, 2011) and is a member and past communications chair of the Oklahoma chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a network of over 8,000 entrepreneurs in 40 countries with companies that have revenue over $1 million dollars annually.

In 2018, after a decade of successful business, iThemes was acquired by LiquidWeb.com, a premiere web hosting company. Cory is currently the General Manager of iThemes, which is ran as an independent unit of Liquid Web.

He blogs regularly about entrepreneurship and career advice here at CoryMiller.com.

He is married to Lindsey Miller, who is the Partner Manager for Liquid Web’s Managed WordPress hosting products. They have an adorable son named Caloway and a little sweetheart daughter named Lillian.

Curtiss Grymala

Curtiss Grymala, the founder of Ten-321 Enterprises, is the Director of Web Technology at the University of Mary Washington. He is in charge of all custom development at UMW, has consulted with various divisions and departments at more than 20 colleges & universities, and builds websites for small business and non-profits across the United States.

Daniel Schiavone

The Baltimore Sun once described me as a “renaissance man.” That was flattering, but I do enjoy an intense curiosity and strive to grow daily in knowledge and experience. That’s led me to art, music, technology, and business. Curiosity gave me the opportunity to bind a book for Pope John Paul II, start a thriving art center, help revitalize a Baltimore neighborhood, and dive into programming.

Technology is the perfect field for the curious; always changing, looking ahead, solving problems, and creating solutions. I get to do all this as a partner at Snake Hill Web Agency in Baltimore where we design and build complex websites.

Drew Poland

Drew Poland is a WordPress developer in the Baltimore area specializing in custom theme design & development with a focus on ecommerce. He is also a regular WordCamp speaker, Meetup organizer, and contributing member of the community.

Dwayne McDaniel

Dwayne has been working in tech and open source sales since 2005.
He knew as soon as he started working with Java middleware developers he never wanted to work outside of open source ever again. Dwayne first started building in Drupal and WordPress for the San Francisco Improv teams and projects. He fell in the love the community and then found a position at Pantheon at the end of 2013.
As a Developer Advocate he has had the privilege of presenting at dozens of community events from Paris to Iceland to MIT and Stanford.
Outside of tech he loves producing and performing improv theater, reading webcomics and singing karaoke!
Reach out at https://mcdwayne.com or on twitter @mcdwayne

Eileen Violini

Eileen is the User Experience and Front End Design half of the design and development team at Sidetrack Studio. She was a previous co-organizer of WordCamp Philly, a frequent speaker on WordPress topics at WordCamp Lehigh Valley and WordCamp Lancaster and enjoys solving real-life problems through smart design.

Eli White

Eli has been building Web Applications for 20 years, starting back in the days of writing CGI-BIN programs in C. He’s worked for a laundry list of companies & startups such as Digg, TripAdvisor, and the Hubble Space Telescope Project. He is currently the Vice President of One for All Events LLC, and Conference Chair for php [architect]. He is a strong advocate for “Just getting it done” when it comes to coding, and speaks at numerous conferences each year.

Eve Land

Eve transitioned from a career in Electrical Engineering to IT. She’s designed WordPress websites, writes occasional code and loves Linux system administration and WordPress.

Eve is an AWS Certified Solutions Architect.

In fact, she loves WordPress and the AWS platform so much she built a company around them. She migrates and deploys WordPress sites on AWS.

Gayle Williams

Gayle Williams, owner of Vision Marketing in Sarasota, FL, has spent the majority of her career as a marketing professional directing marketing operations for not-for-profits and small businesses. Gayle moved over to agency account management in 2002 and founded her own agency in 2008. From directing strategy and client relations she moved into hands-on design and development—growing in the opposite direction than most designers has had its strategic advantages. Today she runs a thriving digital marketing and WordPress design business from her home office, and enjoys the work-family balance it provides.

Gayle was an early inbound marketing adopter as a Hubspot partner agency and maintains her Inbound Marketing certification. She is also a WP Elevation-certified Digital Business Consultant.

Hope Tillman

After a career as a librarian and library director, I am now developing WordPress websites for nonprofit and for-profit organizations. I wrote a book about the Internet for librarians in 1993. Beginning with training librarians to use the tools of the Internet from its earliest days, I now find myself doing a lot of WordPress training.

Jacob Mishkin

Jacob is a full stack developer from Chicago, IL who loves WordPress and JavaScript. I build user-friendly and accessible websites, developing products from the ground up into functional websites and applications. When I’m not coding, you can find me playing tennis, biking around Chicago, bowling, or watching Star Trek The Next Generation.

Jason Schramm

Jason is a web developer in the Columbia, MD area who has been working with WordPress for years. He develops websites to help people make compassionate lifestyle changes at www.veggroups.org.

Joey Blake

I am a Lead Developer at Knucklepuck and 10up alum. I love making solving problems with beautifully simple and efficient solutions.

I have built and maintained numerous enterprise level WordPress projects. For clients such as Adobe, Time Inc. ESPN and Chico’s clothing, amongst others.

Julka Grodel

Julka Grodel is a Principal Software Engineer at Framebridge, a DC startup disrupting the custom framing market. She is happiest when she can get lost in the details and structure of a thing, making it for work her, making it work better, or cleaning it up to make it easier for others. By day, Julka channels this focus to empower Framebridge customers to frame everything they love and she enjoys seeing how creative and weird people get. When not toiling away for her corporate overlords she spends her time volunteering on literacy projects with the Junior League, in a Pilates studio, or doting over her blind cat Batman and his BFF Robin.

Kerch McConlogue

Kerch McConlogue, retired ADHD coach and front end developer, has been writing code by hand for 19 years and using WordPress since version 1.5. Speaking plain-English to nonGeeks, her passion is for helping WordPress novices understand the basics of care and feeding of their own site and to get past their fears of breaking the internet.

Kim White

I began building websites in 1998. Email lists like Chicago WebWomen and Philly WebWomen were where I met my teachers, mentors, employers, and friends. From when the question was as simple as “How do I make my text blink?” I have always valued community input.

After attending WordCamp NYC in ’09 I was in love with WordPress and its people. Since then WordCamps have not only been a source of education, they have been a place to meet people from all over the world and make connections long valued.

Laura Byrne Cristiano

Laura started her first WordPress site back in March 2006 when she and a friend and decided to start a website about a then little-known book called Twilight where fans could discuss the novel on a blog and forums. What started as a small site with maybe 30 visitors a week, rapidly grew into the most popular Twilight website on the Internet with millions of visitors each day from around the globe.

Laura was suddenly thrust into a media vortex that included set visits, a book deal, speaking engagements, and too many surreal experiences to count. This lead to Laura transitioning from a career in teaching to one in marketing as she hit the ground running with a whole new skill set including podcasting, video editing, SEO, social media management and content marketing.

Since then, she’s created/written for over twenty WordPress sites mostly in the areas of education and entertainment. Aside from 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.

Liam Dempsey

A community organizer in suburban Philly, Liam Dempsey works to bring people together for the empowerment of all. He’s the organizer of the Philly ’burbs WordPress Meetup and the lead organizer of WordCamp Philly. He served on the organizing team for WordCamp US in 2015 and 2016. Liam owns and runs the friendly marketing and design consultancy, LBDesign.

Lynne D’Autrechy

I have been working with WordPress for the 6 years building websites for customers in all different sectors. I have a computer science background and started doing web development in 2011.

Matthew Rodela

Matthew Rodela is a freelance web consultant and marketer. He has a passion for teaching and breaking down complex technical challenges so non-techies can harness the power of technology to build their business. His specialty is automating the website delivery process using WordPress Multisite to create a turnkey website platform, which he refers to as a WaaS (Websites as a Service).

He teaches other WordPress professionals how to set-up their own WaaS through his turnkey websites community and course at www.turnkeywebsitesblueprint.com.

Michelle Coe

Michelle Coe has over 20 years of experience providing elegant design solutions for small to mid-size businesses. She founded BlueSkyPhoenix LLC in 2011. Michelle works with her clients to build brand strategies that create a professional, positive image for their target market, as well as identify and develop brand differentiators which help her clients stand apart from their competitors. In addition to a full range of design skills, Michelle has expertise in WordPress site design and development. As creative director and liaison between her clients and the engineers she works with, she translates the technical into the understandable. She also works extensively with her clients to develop and implement successful marketing strategies. With experience in business, brand & marketing strategy design, project management, event coordination, and instruction, Michelle easily relates and adapts to meet the individual needs of her clients, who hail from all over the United States, and as far away as Japan and China. Michelle currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Fauquier Chamber of Commerce and is the Co-chair of the new Fauquier Chamber Micro Enterprise Council.

Nathan Ingram

Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress and freelance business development topics via live webinar.

He is also the creator of >ADVANCE Coaching, working with WordPress business owners individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their businesses.

Nathan has been a web business owner since 1995, and is based in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the lead organizer of WordCamp Birmingham.

You can learn more about Nathan at https://nathaningram.com.

Neha G Goyal

I am a Full Stack Developer and Manager of Web Development of the American Enterprise Institute with more than eleven years of experience working for non profits, agencies, media and publishing companies.

My past business ventures include co-founding a website called Indian American Weddings to connect engaged couples with vendors, running a South Asian wedding planning blog called Marigold Events, and launching a subscription box business called Marigold Box.

Rahul Nagare

Rahul has been working in the web hosting industry since 2005 and started using WordPress in 2008. Since then he has helped scale web and cloud infrastructure for companies like General Mills, Saks, CSX, and PetSmart. Rahul is now the co-founder and CTO at Nestify, where he manages 10,000+ WordPress and WooCommerce sites.

Tara Claeys

Tara Claeys began her career in advertising and marketing. After her first child was born, she supplemented her full-time job as Mom with illustration and stationery design for clients around the world. Tara now designs and builds websites for clients with her agency Design TLC. She organizes her local WordPress meetup and enjoys traveling to WordCamps and sharing tips on how to be more productive.

Tessa Kriesel

Teaching and mentorship come naturally to dog-lover and Developer Outreach Manager at Pantheon, Tessa Kriesel. She wears many hats in her life — all with sass and finesse — including instructor for Girl Develop It, lead organizer for WordCamp Minneapolis, and founder of Outspoken Women and Coders of TMRW.

Tessa has spoken on many topics including helping beginners with workflow, mentorship, configuration management, and shedding light on continuous integration and deployment. She has also been a panelist on a wide range of topics at Conferences and Meetups.

When Tessa isn’t working on her development chops or mentoring junior developers, she is using her extroverted super hero skills to make people feel welcome and included at whatever event she attends.

Tim McKenna

Tim McKenna is the Director of User Experience at Pennsylvania Interactive, a subsidiary of NIC, the people behind eGov. Tim has been using WordPress for eight years and spoken at several WordCamps including Lancaster, PA, Baltimore, Philadelphia and the first WordCamp USA.

Zac Gordon

Zac Gordon is a professional educator, with a current focus on JavaScript development with and alongside WordPress. Zac has years of experience teaching at high schools, colleges, bootcamps and online learning sites like Treehouse, Udemy and Frontend Masters. In addition to teaching, Zac also runs Web Hosting for Students, one of the world’s largest hosting companies dedicated to students and teachers. You can also catch his free weekly Office Yoga sessions on OfficeYoga.tv