You can also find all our 2014 WordCamp Chicago speakers in one twitter list – and don’t forget to follow us @WordCampChicago!
Aaron Holbrook
Aaron will be presenting Introduction to IDEs and Debugging on Sunday in the Advanced Development track
Aaron’s passions are his wife and two boys, gaming and exercising. He devises brilliant solutions as a Web Engineer at 10up.
Aaron was the Lead Organizer of WordCamp Chicago in 2013 and founded the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago WordPress Meetup. He has spoken at more over half a dozen WordCamps ranging from WordCamp Milwaukee to WordCamp Providence and loves to teach others the joys of using remarkable tools well. He’s aaronjholbrook on twitter and sometimes writes useful things at aaronjholbrook.com.
Aaron Jorbin
Aaron will be presenting Color Theory for Web Developers on Saturday in the Design track
Aaron is a Polyhistoric man of the web. Currently Technical Architect on the Conde Nast Platform Team and a WordPress contributor, he works to improve developer happiness and is dedicated to making internet usable and enjoyable by everyone.
Alison Barrett
Alison will be presenting Wireframing Essentials on Saturday in the Design track
Alison has been working with WordPress since 2008. She started out building simple client websites and moved on to developing plugins and theme frameworks. After working at various local agencies in Minneapolis, she is now a senior web engineer at 10up. Alison lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband and their three cats.
Andrew Nacin
Nacin is a Lead Developer at WordPress, squashing bugs, wrangling contributions, and spearheading new development. He has strong feelings about the core philosophies of WordPress, among them “decisions, not options”— software should be opinionated in lieu of burdening the user with too many options. He works for WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg at Audrey Capital, where he is primarily tasked with working on WordPress core and keeping the lights on at WordPress.org. He resides in downtown Washington, D.C.
Becky Davis
Becky will be presenting Project Management or How to Herd Cats on Sunday in the Business/Project Management track
Becky is a solopreneur web designer/developer who specializes in custom themes. She fell in love with WordPress in 2009 and has never looked back. She is a big advocate for training and empowering site owners and to that end speaks regularly on WordPress and web design at SCORE Chicago and WordCamps around the country.
She runs the Northside Chicago WordPress meetup and if you’re local expects to see you there soon.
Her kids are both out of the house at this point, but she still takes care of the kitties and her landlord’s garden. She is grateful that winter is over and she can once again ride her bike to the grocery store and to meet friends at the bar.
Ben Lobaugh
Ben will be presenting From Zero to WordPress Hero on Sunday in the General Interest track
Adventurous sailor and Seattle WordPress(Camp) organizer, Ben Lobaugh has been working with open source communities for 15-plus years and is an active contributor to the WordPress community. Ben currently works as a Jetpack Engineer with Automattic.
Brennen Byrne
Brennen will be presenting passwords: The Weakest Link in WordPress Security on Saturday in the Development track
Brennen is the cofounder and CEO of Clef (getclef.com), a replacement for usernames and passwords online. His focus is on making advanced technology accessible to anyone and applying it to everyday use cases. Clef relies on public key cryptography, a standard which developers and security experts have used for years, but is wrapped in a mobile app that makes logging in faster and easier than ever.
Brennen and his team launched Clef in June of 2013, and has grown to power logins on more than 2,500 sites around the web. The New York times described logging in with Clef as “”magical”” and has been recommended by security experts around the web. After leading the Petition Against Passwords in 2013, Clef has been at the center of the global conversation about the next generation of online security.
Active in the WordPress community, Brennen has spoken about security at WordCamps across the country from Phoenix to Buffalo.
Brent Shepherd
Brent will be presenting Develop Very Mild Superpowers with Git on Saturday in the Development track
WordPress is my hobby and my profession.
I currently work day-and-night on WooCommerce Subscriptions – the most popular 3rd party extension in the official WooCommerce marketplace. Prior to falling in love with WooCommerce, I worked as a WordPress freelancer developer for clients like Stanford University, Designer Fund and the Australian Government.
I’ve spoken at WordCamp’s in Phoenix, Orlando, Sydney (Australia) and helped co-organise WordCamps in Melbourne and Gold Coast (Australia).
Brian Busche
Brian is a Chicago-based WordPress developer, starting in 2005 with online communities like camaro.com, and various client projects. His background as a coder has landed him jobs at agency.com, Leo Burnett, Digitas, and BBDO.
Brian founded Rendition Multimedia in 1999 as a Web design shop, and currently operates out of the 1871 co-working space. He emphasizes the Lean Startup principles to building software, and feels that WordPress is the best tool for the Minimally Viable Product approach to web site design.
Brian organizes a monthly meetup called “WordPress in the Loop”. He is always looking for opportunities to connect with other WordPress people in Chicago, and foster a greater degree of friendship and collaboration within that community.
Brian Krogsgard
Brian will be presenting Do Big Things With A Small Team on Saturday in the Biz track
Brian is a Junior Partner at Range, a boutique web development and design agency. Range is also a WordPress.com VIP development partner.
Brian also runs Post Status, a blog dedicated to news and resources for WordPress professionals and enthusiasts.
You can follow Brian on Twitter @krogsgard.
Chris Lema
Chris will be presenting Are you ready to learn a bit about Pricing on Saturday in the Biz track
For twenty years Chris has been managing high performers and overseeing new product development. He’s a daily blogger, an ebook author, a public speaker and works as the VP of Engineering for Emphasys Software. In his spare time he helps companies leverage WordPress, and WordPress companies find leverage.
Dan Beil
Dan will be presenting How NOT to develop (With WordPress) on Saturday in the Business/Project Management track
Dan has been a theme developer for the past 5 years, specializing in custom WordPress builds to address specific requirements. Recently Dan has joined the Alley Interactive team and works remotely from Minneapolis, MN. In his ‘free’ time he fosters Siberian Huskies and sometimes contributes to opensource WordPress projects on GitHub.
Dustin Filippini
Dustin Filippini (@dustyf) is a Web Engineer with 10up creating and managing websites for clients of all sizes. Dustin started his programming journey in BASIC on his Radio Shack Tandy 1000 computer in grade school and was the computer geek in high school who played pranks on the librarian by installing fake “viruses” on the computers. He first started creating for the web in 1997 learning some HTML and also using high-tech tools like Geocities and FrontPage. Although, he longs for the days of Geocities, he has moved on using WordPress starting in 2005 for a college course. After creating sites using WordPress, other CMSes, and static HTML as a hobby and side job, he eventually took the dive into becoming a full-time developer and found the WordPress Community. Because he feels the WordPress and greater web community has done so much for him, he has given back by contributing to WordPress core and being the lead organizer of WordCamp Milwaukee and organizer of the Milwaukee WordPress Meetup, Web414, and the Milwaukee JavaScript User Group. When not staring at a screen, Dustin loves to hang out in his backyard with his wife and two dogs and plant a garden with his 2-year old daughter. He can be found online at dustyf.com.
George Stephanis
George will be presenting Moving your Plugin to GitHub: Trials, Tribulations, and Testing on Saturday in the Development track
George Stephanis works for Automattic (makers of WordPress.com) as Team Lead for the Jetpack Pit Crew, helping self-hosted WordPress sites take advantage of the WordPress.com cloud. He is also a frequent core contributor to the WordPress open-source project, a community organizer, regularly presents at WordCamps, and guests on podcasts like the WPWatercooler and the WP Girlie Show.
Gloria Antonelli
Gloria will be presenting Information Architecture Strategy Session on Friday in the Foundation Friday 201 track
Gloria Antonelli fits the current definition of a UX Unicorn – a web designer/developer with UX chops. Gloria attended her first UX workshop “Elements of User Experience” in 2004. Now an advocate of Lean UX, Gloria infuses her skills in rapid prototyping, front end development, user testing, and ideation within the WordPress design process. Her expertise also spans CSS, IA, Content and Documentation Strategies.
Gloria started presenting about the web in 1996 at local and national conferences and workshops. She began working with WordPress in 2006 and has been delighted to share her knowledge at WordCamps in Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids and Milwaukee. Happiness for Gloria besides researching UX trends, Mobile and App development is scuba diving in exotic locations.
Gloria became the new organizer of the inactive Chicago Suburbs WordPress Meetup Group. Currently she is looking for a new home and more advance focus for the group.
Gregory Cornelius
Gregory will be presenting Taking Your JavaScript Further on Saturday in the Advanced Development track
Gregory Cornelius is a code wrangler at Automattic and WordPress core contributor. Prior to moving to Boston, Massachusetts, Gregory spent ten years pursuing music degrees at schools in Missouri, Ohio, and Texas.
Along the way, he discovered that helping folks share their ideas on the web with WordPress was invigorating and has been doing so professionally since 2008.
Heather Acton
Heather will be presenting Introduction to Custom Theming on Friday in the Foundation Friday 301 track
Heather Acton is the founder and lead WordPress developer at Helio Interactive, a boutique digital agency in Chicago, IL. She’s passionate about good practices, mentoring others, and drinking craft beer with colleagues and friends.
Hilary Fosdal
Hilary will be presenting No Regrets Web Design on Saturday in the Design track
Hilary Fosdal is the founder of Bring Your Own Stuff (byostuff.com). She also serves as the Digital Strategist at the Better Government Association (BGA).
Prior to joining the BGA, Hilary was the digital managing editor for the Chicago-based Cumulus Radio stations WLS AM and 94.7 FM. She earned her M.A. in journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
You can follow her @hilaryfosdal and get to know her better online at http://hilaryfosdal.com.
Ian Wilson
Ian will be presenting Understanding WordPress Filters and Actions on Friday in the Foundation Friday 301 track
In past lives Ian has been a lead developer, lead designer, and Huffington Post guest blogger (among other things). Currently he runs design & code agency build/create alongside business partner Eric Lynch.
As a self taught developer, Ian started using WordPress in 2007, and immediately started looking for ways to better exploit its then more blog-oriented functionality for content management. Since then he has built a business around providing clients with WordPress powered sites that meld design and code into a seamless, intuitive, user experience.
James Barrett
Jim has been active in the WordPress community since 2008, first as a designer, then as an advocate and a speaker. He brings over 10 years of UX, front end, and visual design expertise to the 10up design team where he current works. Before coming to 10up, Jim worked for various agencies and companies in the Minneapolis area, crafting design solutions for both small businesses and Fortune 500 companies.
Jamie Sanchez
Jamie will be presenting Admin as a User Experience: The Quest for Simplicity on Friday in the Foundation Friday 301 track
Jamie Sanchez is an award-winning graphic designer, front-end developer, and usability advocate in Chicago, IL. She’s been crafting websites for over 12 years, experimenting with WordPress since 2005, and has over 6 years of design and marketing expertise working with clients such as Follett, Holabird and Root, and US Equities. She currently develops websites at Association Management Center.
Jamie is extremely passionate about community building. She is the founder of AnimeChicago, board member of independent game developer community Indie City Collective, and proud Chicago Nerd Social Club member. Follow @spacedragon for nerdy rants and occasional craft beer live tweet tastings.
Jesse Friedman
Jesse will be presenting UX Real-Time Site Personalization on Saturday in the Development track
Jesse Friedman is a veteran WordPress developer. In 2012 he wrote the “Web Designers Guide to WordPress.” With years of a experience as a speaker and a Professor at Johnson & Wales University he delivers impactful and educational talks. Currently Jesse is the Director of Innovation at Parka, the creators of BruteProtect.
Jesse co-organizes local WordPress meetups, and is very active in the community. He works closely with his students and others to share knowledge and bring forth a better future for web design and development.
Joe Casabona
Joe will be presenting Responsive Design with WordPress on Saturday in the Development track
Joe Casabona is a web developer, author, and teacher who focuses primarily on WordPress and mobile development. His latest book, Responsive Design with WordPress is out now. He is also a Yankee fan, plays the drums, and enjoys a fine cigar from time to time. You can find him over at casabona.org or on Twitter at @jcasabona.
Joe Dolson
Joe will be presenting Accessibility Ready: Theming for a larger audience on Saturday in the Development track
Joe Dolson is a WordPress plug-in developer and accessibility consultant. He’s the author of several popular WordPress plug-ins, including WP to Twitter and My Calendar, and works to promote accessible development with WordPress. He teaches a course at the University of Colorado at Boulder on developing accessibly with WordPress, and works with the WordPress Accessibility task force on the accessibility of WordPress itself.
Joe has been working in marketing and web development since 2001, providing web consulting and development services to clients in the US and in Europe. Joe writes and speaks regularly on important topics in accessible web development and web standards. Keep up with Joe at Joe Dolson Accessible Web Design
Joel Bronkowski
Joel is a bit of a WordPress newb but has been thrown in the deep end in helping WooThemes bolster its relationships and partnerships with the many players in the eCommerce space over the past 14 months.
Joel lived at home in Southern California until he was 23 before he ventured to South Africa on a mission trip, met the love of his life and has lived there ever since.
John Havlik
First introduced to WordPress in 2005, John Havlik has been an avid WordPress user, theme creator, and plugin author ever since. Among his various plugins is the popular breadcrumb plugin, Breadcrumb NavXT. When not working on his own projects, John helps support the small, 150 user, WordPress community at Weblogs.us. He also helps organize and frequently presents at MSP WordPress User Group meetings.
John James Jacoby (JJJ)
John James will be presenting Multisite and Multi-network on Sunday in the Advanced Development track
BuddyPress, bbPress, BackPress, WordPress, 10up, Automattic, Tall
Josh Broton
Josh will be presenting You Don’t Need jQuery on Saturday in the Advanced Development track
Josh spends his days building interactive infographics, cool ways to visualize data, and high performance NodeJS web apps and WordPress themes at Lemonly. There, he fills the roles of both senior developer and curmudgeon.
He writes HTML, CSS, and JavaScript at Kidblog.org, the world’s largest educational blog network.
He also helped build the Spring Theme and Sassquatch Sass mixin library with 3themes.
In his spare time, he works on standing.io, a collection of his favorite conference videos.
Josh Leuze
Josh will be presenting Building Your First Widget on Saturday in the Development track
Josh Leuze is a WordPress developer from Minnesota who loves making themes. He is the author of the popular Meteor Slides plugin.
When not building themes and plugins in his basement, Josh can be found doodling with his kids at the kitchen table, digging in the garden, or pedaling his bike around town.
Joshua Alexander
Joshua will be presenting Plugins and Dashboard on Friday in the Foundation Friday 101 track
I own a small development company in the SW Burbs of Chicago that caters to other agencies. We do custom WP work such as theme development, plugins, and modifications for other tech companies.
Julie Cameron
Julie will be presenting Surviving Support: 10 Tips for Saving Your Users and Yourself on Sunday in the General Interest track
Julie Cameron is a frontend developer for Articulate working in the metro-Detroit area. She is the sole developer and support-provider of the open source SlickQuiz plugins for jQuery and WordPress. Julie is a fan of Sassy CSS and modular architecture, responsive web design, and is a student of JavaScript and self-improvement.
K.Adam White
K. Adam will be presenting Modular JavaScript on Saturday in the Advanced Development track
K.Adam White is a JavaScript engineer at Bocoup, an Open Web technology company located in Boston, MA, where he builds web applications and evangelizes for the web as an open technology platform.
K.Adam has been a co-organizer of the Boston WordPress meetup since 2012, and has presented on WordPress and front-end development best practices at meetups and WordCamps across the country.
Kelly Dwan
Kelly will be presenting A Walk Around the Loop on Saturday in the Advanced Development track
Kelly Dwan is a web developer, plugin author, and all around geek living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She works for 10up as a web engineer, finding elegant technical solutions for enterprise clients. She is a WordPress core contributor as of 3.5 and looks forward to contributing more in the future.
Kyle Maurer
Kyle will be presenting Shortcode Shenanigans on Friday in the Foundation Friday 201 track
I’m the co-founder of and lead developer for Real Big Marketing which is a full service marketing firm based in Jackson, Michigan. I have been developing websites since 2009 and use WordPress every single day.
I’m a huge WordPress nut and love developing awesome websites and am passionate about creating new plugins.
Lisa Ghisolf
Lisa will be presenting A house with no walls: Creating a site structure for the future on Sunday in the General Interest track
Lisa Ghisolf is Gizmo Creative Factory, with 17+ years in print, web & email design, and 10 years in business. She’s worked with big and small agencies alike, creating print work and websites for Kraft, Allstate & many corporations & organizations. Instead of just putting out fires, she’s now building robust WordPress sites and training clients and giving workshops on how they can manage them on their own.
Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Lisa will be presenting Check & Double Check: Internal QA is Vital on Sunday in the Business/Project Management track
Lisa Sabin-Wilson is the co-owner of WebDevStudios, a design and development company specializing in customized WordPress themes and plugins, and the author of WordPress For Dummies. As the “For Dummies” brand franchise author on all things WordPress she’s also written several other WordPress-related books.
She’s worked with WordPress since 2003, and is also a regular public speaker on topics such as WordPress, blogging, design, and social media.
Marc Benzakein
Marc will be presenting There’s No Place Like 127.0.0.1 on Friday in the Foundation Friday 301 track
Marc Benzakein has been working online since the mid 90s, starting as a Network Administrator for a small, independent ISP in Southern California and has been involved in almost all aspects of technology. In 2009, he started developing in WordPress, first for his own purposes and then for clients. In early 2013, he got involved with ServerPress, LLC, makers of DesktopServer, a local development tool created for WordPress designers and developers.
Marc lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his wife, Jessica and two children, Eli (8) and Brenna (4).
Mel Choyce
Mel will be presenting Getting the Most out of WordPress.com in the 101 Foundation Friday track.
Mel is a Design Engineer at Automattic. She loves big type, cold brew coffee, and printmaking.
Michele Butcher
Michele will be presenting Intro To Jetpack on Friday in the Foundation Friday 201 track
Michele is a full time blogger, designer, and all around awesome person. Michele started her love for WordPress back in 2010 when she got her feet wet working with Bit51 as a content creator and support ninja until its merger with iThemes.
Michele is also the Organizer for the Southern Illinois WordPress Meetup. She is also the newest member of the WP Security Lock team in April of this year. When not in front of a screen, Michele enjoys life with her family and friends.
Michelle Schulp
Michelle is an independent graphic designer based in Chicagoland. She was formally schooled in many aspects of design including print, branding, packaging, etc., with additional education in Psychology and Sociology, all tying together in a love of How To Solve Problems. Lately she has been specializing in WordPress websites, infographics, and high-end presentations for her clients. She is a lover of WordCamps and the WordPress community, a Meetup junkie, @3themes contributor, and WordCamp Chicago lead organizer. Find her work at Marktime Media, and her talks/events/blogs/geek-themed artwork at My Name Is Michelle.
Mike Hale
Mike will be presenting Content Calendars for WordPress: Tips & Tools on Sunday in the General Interest track
Mike Hale is a Developer at Copyblogger Media. Mike has over 15 years of experience building custom websites and applications. He started working with WordPress in 2010 and specializes in customizing themes, building plugins and migrating existing sites to WordPress using the Genesis Framework. Mike is also the co-organizer of the WordPress Aurora Meetup and founder of Twibitz.
Nick Pelton
Bio coming soon!
Patrick Rauland
Patrick will be presenting Freemium For the Rest of Us on Sunday in the Business/Project Management track
Patrick spends most of the work day slicing and dicing code to help WooThemes customers. He develops extensions for Ninja Forms and loves to blog. He also organizes the Appleton WordPress Meetup. Being outside, running, and practicing yoga are some of his favorite activities. His ultimate goal is to figure out a way to code websites while in a headstand.
Pete Mall
Pete is COO and a Partner at Range. Based in Silicon Valley, Pete has been weaving magic on the web for the last ten years. He is a veteran open source programmer and a regular core contributor to WordPress. He has experience in building fast, scalable, dynamic solutions in different business environments. Pete is skilled at turning around troubled development projects, and improving the productivity and dependability of the team. You can follow him on Twitter @petemall.
Rachel Baker
Rachel will be presenting Put Your Site to REST With WP-API on Sunday in the Advanced Development track
Rachel has lead WordPress projects of all shapes and sizes. Including for high-traffic communities and Fortune 500 companies. She is a Senior Strategic Engineer at 10up where she pushes the limits of WordPress.
Rachel is a proud member of the WordPress Community. She is a WordPress Core Contributor and plugin developer. Rachel enjoys teaching and mentoring new developers at her local WordPress Meetup Group and Dev Bootcamp. She wants to see the WP-API project, a JSON-based REST API, rolled into core for WordPress 4.0.
Rachel lives in Chicago with her wife Yesenia and their three pets. She relaxes by going down a rabbit-hole of Wikipedia articles, listening to podcasts, or drinking beer.
Rebecca Gill
Rebecca will be presenting Solutions Before Development: Creating WordPress Products That Actually Sell on Sunday in the Business/Project Management track
Rebecca is president and founder of Web Savvy Marketing. With over a decade of experience in internet marketing, she was an early adopter of blogging, SEO and social media. She and her team specialize in creating custom WordPress websites and building stock child themes for the Genesis framework. She has spoken at the University of Toledo, Grand Valley State University, Michigan State University and WordPress MeetUps.
Ross Johnson
“Ross Johnson has been designing websites professionally for over fifteen years. He brings a unique and comprehensive view to design, shaped by a lifelong love for fine arts and his education in technology, business and social science. This diverse background brings insight to all aspects of design including practicality, business implications and psychology of how people interact with computers.
Ross is a partner at 3.7 DESIGNS a WordPress focused design and development agency. He also sells a premium project management plugin for WordPress called Project Panorama“
Sam Hotchkiss
Bio coming soon!
Sara Cannon
Sara will be presenting Do Big Things With A Small Team in the Business/Project Management track with Aaron Campbell, Brian Krogsgard and Pete Mall as well as Smart Design: Icon Fonts, SVG, and the Mobile Influence in the Design track, both on Saturday.
Sara has a passion for art, design, and typography. She is Partner and Creative Director for Range – A design and development agency specializing in WordPress. Sara is a WordPress contributor, loves open source, her pets, and traveling the world. You can find her on twitter @saracannon or writing on her blog sara-cannon.com.
“Life is short, art is long, typography is everything, code is poetry.”
Shanta R. Nathwani
Shanta will be presenting WordPress 101 on Friday in the Foundation Friday 101 track
Shanta R. Nathwani is an IT and Social Media Consultant and an Instructor in Web Design and CCIT Capstone at Sheridan College, which includes teaching WordPress. The ICCIT program is a joint program with the University of Toronto at Mississauga. She teaches students and small businesses how to use their websites and social media to increase their online presence leading to increased revenues and improved customer service. She has assisted companies to incorporate social media in the real estate, financial, non-profit, education and technical fields to name a few.
Shanta is a problem solver and it has been said she has the patience of a saint. She can explain even the most difficult concepts to the most basic user and has developed training documents that allow clients to learn for themselves. She thrives on understanding the needs of her clients. She believes in making social media as simple as possible and making it fun, which allows her clients to seamlessly incorporate it into their organization.
Steve Zehngut
Steve will be presenting Are you ready to learn a bit about Pricing on Saturday in the Biz track
Steve founded Zeek Interactive in 1995 and he has been the creative technologist behind the Huntington Beach based company since its inception. Under his direction, Zeek has grown from an apartment bedroom to one of Southern California’s leading development and consulting shops.
Steve is the organizer of the OC WordPress Meetup and has helped build the community to over 850 members. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has taught interactive courses at UC Irvine, USC, the American Film Institute, and Cal State Long Beach. Steve has a BA in Film from Cal State Northridge.
Suzette Franck
Suzette will be presenting WordPress Wizardry Without Code on Friday in the Foundation Friday 201 track
Suzette Franck is a WordPress Evangelist at (mt) Media Temple, a Los Angeles-based company providing premium web hosting and cloud services to web designers, web developers, digital innovators and entrepreneurs since 1998. An established member of the WordPress community and one of today’s most prolific female WordPress speakers, Suzette joined Media Temple in 2012 and has, since then, been building on the company’s early involvement with the WordPress and Open Source communities. She advocates and educates for WordPress by actively participating in WordCamp conferences country-wide and WordPress meetups in Southern California.
As passionate about front-end coding as she is about increasing awareness of the wonders of WordPress, she also co-hosts Media Temple’s weekly educational podcast, WP Unicorn Project (wpunicornproject.com), with WordPress Unicorn Rockstar Natalie MacLees, which addresses all things WordPress and web development with a variety of WordPress professionals including designers, developers, and entrepreneurs. Suzette blogs about WordPress at suzettefranck.com, and she is a repeated guest on the popular WPWatercooler (wpwatercooler.com) video podcast (over 5 million views). When she is not “WordPressing”, Suzette, who resides in North Hollywood, CA, paints and collects art.
Tony Perez
Tony will be presenting WordPress Security – It’s All About the Basics on Saturday in the Development track
Tony is one of three co-founders at Sucuri, Inc. — a website security company specializing in the various online threats that website owners face today. He’s a Marine Corps veteran that has been living in the underbelly of the web for various years. He enjoys speaking in front of crowds and finding ways to engage the crowd on the very serious subject of website security.
Tracy Apps
Tracy will be presenting how to not design like a developer on Saturday in the Design track
Tracy, aka tapps, has been working with WordPress since before it was WordPress… and yes, apps is really her last name (because I know you were wondering). Her formal training is in traditional art and print design, however she first started teaching her self web development in 1996 (back in the heyday of tiled background graphics and animated GIFs). Tracy now owns tracy apps design, a web creative company specializing in custom WordPress solutions for clients of all sizes.
When tracy isn’t working on making the web a more beautiful place, you might find her playing drums/percussion with various musicians around Milwaukee, or lifting heavy things in CrossFit.
Travis Totz
Travis will be presenting Designing for Interaction on Saturday in the Design track
Partner and co-owner at Westwerk/WerkPress, Travis has been driven to build and create wonderful projects on-top of WordPress since version 1.5. In-between working on client work and traveling the country, Travis helps organize and build-up the local, Minneapolis WordPress community through advanced user meet-ups and engagements. Travis enjoys spending his time solving web design challenges — through design, interaction, and user experience.
Travis’ passions outside of WordPress are reading non-fiction, making music, traveling, and living a vegetarian/healthy lifestyle.
Troy Dean
Troy will be presenting 101 Ways to Elevate Yourself and Demand Higher Fees on Saturday in the Biz track
Troy Dean is a WordPress speaker, consultant and coach and is co-founder of Video User Manuals and WP Elevation. Buy him a beer and pick his brain about building a business on WordPress.
Yesenia Sotelo
Yesenia will be presenting Use Google Analytics to Improve Your WordPress Website on Sunday in the General Interest track
Yesenia Sotelo is a web developer and nonprofit nerd. She has been building and growing nonprofit websites since 2001. As the founder of SmartCause Digital, she serves as an approachable, expert resource that can answer all your questions about web technology, strategies for online fundraising, data security and anything that could affect your organization’s online presence.
Zac Gordon
Zac will be presenting Why Setting Up Themes is a Niche in Itself, What to Know on Friday in the Foundation Friday 201 track
Zac is the WordPress teacher at Treehouse, an amazing online learning site. Before Treehouse, Zac taught WordPress and web development at the high school and college level. In addition to teaching WordPress, Zac also runs Web Hosting for Students, a hosting company dedicated to students and teachers of the web.
Zack Tollman
Zach will be presenting Speed as a Feature: Getting a Handle on Page Load Time on Sunday in the Advanced Development track
Residing in Portland, Oregon, Zack longs for the cold, snowy days of his Alaskan youth. He enjoys strumming his guitar, playing hockey, and spending time with his wife and dog. Otherwise, you’ll find him at his computer meticulously spinning lines of clean code as a developer at The Theme Foundry.