Speakers

Ben Broide

Ben Broide has been developing CMS oriented websites in the last decade. Even before, and at a very young age, Ben found himself curious about data processing and the flow of data in general. His current focus is on development of WordPress plugins and themes, as well as proper data migration into WordPress. His favorite tools are Wp-Rest-Api and Wp-Cli. Currently based in manhattan, Ben helps out his clients migrating legacy data structures into WordPress.

Drew Wilde

At Bluehost, I’m responsible for gathering and assessing business goals, market research, customer feedback, and other input to formulate product features, functions and requirements which offer competitive advantage.

Passionate about building product and software that is valuable, feasible and usable.

I run a couple of WordPress sites on the side for my personal use and a non-profit I volunteer for. They’re my passion projects

Patrick Alexander

Patrick Alexander is the CEO and founder of WPBICO, an all in one WordPress platform which provides every tool (domain,email,theme,hosting, plugins & training) required for a WP website at one affordable price. An avid WordPress enthusiast and lover of all things tech, Patrick has devoted himself to the tech industry for over 15 years gaining extensive experience in Programming, Web Development, System Administration and Technician; and a resume with related positions in the U.S military, Universities and several Internet Start Ups. He is also the founder of several startups www.balambico.co,,www.wpbico.com and Co-Organizer of www.webbuilditcon.com (a conference focused on teaching essential business tools to small businesses and entrepreneurs )

Sandy Edwards

Sandy Edwards has been working in the online marketing space for over 5 years. She started at a niche firm that utilized WordPress to create sites quickly utilizing several options frameworks. Today, she owns CE Squared a Data-Drive WordPress Agency. She loves to give back by teaching kids about coding, WordPress, and other technical skills. Sandy is very active in the Orlando WordPress community and is excited to see what changes are coming to the tech world!

Helen Hou-Sandi

Helen is the Director of Platform Experience at 10up, where she is sponsored to work on WordPress full-time as a lead developer for core. Helen proudly lives in Jersey City, is a Virginian at heart, and a New Yorker by blood.

Cassandra Nozil

My name is Cassandra Nozil, and I’m a web developer and graphic designer.

I went to Columbia University in the City of New York and I’ve worked with brands like Oracle, Columbia University Blinken Institute, and Columbia University Business School.

Wes Turner

Wesley is the Director of Technology at Barrel where he oversees the Development Team, responsible for producing high-quality, custom web experiences layered atop Award-winning designs. In his capacity as director, he consults with clients on a number of technical requirements for most modern web applications including hosting infrastructure, platforms and technologies, custom integrations, security considerations, quality assurance testing, and performance optimization.

With over ten years of experience in web, Wesley has a deep knowledge of web applications, specifically those for content management and e-commerce systems. Wes has a vast and intimate understanding of WordPress and its capabilities. Some current and former clients include Jacob’s Pillow Dance, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Well+Good, Wanderlust, and Quanta Magazine.

Jeff Mulholland

Jeff Mulholland is the Interim CEO of Pressable, a leading WordPress host. Jeff left a stable career in IT for an opportunity with Pressable in 2015. He lives in the high desert mountains of Alpine, TX with his wife and son. When he’s not doing Pressable stuff, Jeff likes to fish at Lake Amistad although he’s not very good.

Steve Bruner

Steve Bruner is the CEO of SlipFire, New York City based WordPress development studio established in 2007, and a partner in Piklist LLC. where he is creating the most powerful framework available for WordPress.

Zac Gordon

Zac Gordon is a professional educator, currently working on the JavaScript for WordPress Master Course. Previously, Zac taught WordPress for Treehouse. He has years of experience teaching WordPress and JavaScript at high schools, colleges, bootcamps and online learning sites. In addition to teaching, Zac also runs Web Hosting for Students, one of the world’s largest hosting companies dedicated to students and teachers.

Chris Edwards

Chris is co-owner of CE Squared, a WordPress Maintenance and Marketing agency. He is a 17-year Internet marketing veteran with experience in web design & development, search engine optimization, online marketing, social media marketing and mobile development. He specializes in WordPress custom development utilizing either Genesis Framework or underscores and is very active in the WordPress Orlando community. Chris has held development and Internet marketing positions in some of Orlando’s top technology companies.

Mikel King

Mikel is a 20+yr Technology Leader, Public Speaker, Columnist, USCG Veteran, Brewer of beer, Coffee Evangelist – Director of Customer Experience & Software Development at Trusted Media Brand home of such iconic brands as Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home, and The Family Handyman.

His personal blog: JAFDIP and tweets constantly @mikelking.

Christie Chirinos

Christie Chirinos is a Partner at Caldera Labs, a WordPress plugin company, and in charge of business development and marketing. Caldera Labs is the company led by Josh Pollock behind Caldera Forms, a leading drag-and-drop form builder for WordPress, and a handful of other free and premium plugins. Christie started making websites at the young age of 14 due to an interest in internet business, and has since launched an ecommerce site, sold on third-party marketplaces, created sites for service businesses to generate leads, and then focused in for 3 years on tech for nonprofit organizations. Now, she has gone from WordPress user to WordPress products. Christie received her Master of Business Administration degree with a specialization in information systems management from Florida State University, and is currently based out of New York City.

Josh Pollock

Josh is a WordPress developer and educator. He is Founder/ Lead Developer/ Space Astronaut Grade 3 for Caldera Labs, makers of awesome WordPress tools including Caldera Forms — a drag and drop, responsive WordPress form builder.
Also, he is a WordPress core contributor, the author of two books about WordPress development and a member of The WPCrowd.

Adam Silverstein

Adam wrote games in assembly code, and then applets and of course the obligatory CMS in Java when Netscape Navigator ruled the web – eventually embracing WordPress as his platform of choice. He is a WordPress Core committer and works on the WordPress security team. He is currently helping lead an effort to improve core JavaScript. Adam is a Lead Web Engineer at 10up where he helps make the web better by finely crafting websites & tools for content creators. Adam loves long rafting trips, playing mbira, travel, taking walks and tending his over-sized garden.

Angelica Yarde

Angelica Yarde is the co-founder of Sevenality, a brand strategy agency, located in Orlando, Florida. She is also the owner of Studio 404 Paper and co-host of the Heart + Hustle Podcast, a weekly podcast focused on giving creative entrepreneurs the tools they need to achieve with life-work balance. She has been a designer and developer for over a decade and is passionate about helping brands achieve their goals using design and user-experience based solutions. She helps out with the WordPress Orlando meetup group and the Central Florida Branding & User Experience meetup group.

Chris Rogers

Chris Rogers is the Co-Organizer of WordCamp Las Vegas 2017 and 2014 and Co-Organizer & Frequent Speaker of the Vegas WP Meetup Group. He has a degree in MultiMedia from West Los Angeles College. Chris is a professional actor with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting & Minor in Voice from University of Louisville and started his dance training at the Louisville Ballet. Yesterday, he launched CraftYada teaching people in the Entertainment Business how to create websites for their career. He got the idea from Kim Shivler’s inspiring presentation at WordCamp 2015.

Rahul Bansal

Rahul is the founder and CEO of rtCamp – only WordPress.com VIP Partner from Asia.

His WordPress journey began in 2007 when he was looking for ways to customize his blog. Later on, he moved from professional blogging to freelancing, and from freelancing to starting rtCamp in 2009.

At work, Rahul plays multiple roles, switching between sysadmin (his favorite), to sales and everything else company demands from him.

Over the years, Rahul has contributed to the WordPress community in different ways as a WordCamp speaker, organizer, volunteer, polyglot, theme/plugins developer.

Outside of WordPress, he loves spending time with his son and is a self-proclaimed foodie.

Sam Brodie

Sam is a big proponent of the productized mentality, having built a successful productized web design business (https://jurispage.com) that was acquired for 7 figures in 2016. He now teaches about the productized service business model (http://productized.com) and has started a new business, Offsprout (https://offsprout.com), a website building platform, being built with React, specifically for web design agencies who want to build and manage their client sites faster.

Bruce Chamoff

Bruce Chamoff has been a web developer for over 21 years and has worked on over 1,000 websites. He has worked on WordPress since 2006 building themes and plugins for Fortune 500 companies as well as mom and pop shops. His Udemy courses have taught WordPress development to web designers in over 150 countries as he loves to teach!

His most recent involvement was with the Radio City Rockettes website in New York City and he is the senior director of technology and development for American Media Inc, the publisher of top gossip magazines in the US including National Enquirer, OK, Star, and Soap Opera Digest. In his spare time, he performs with this band and is a dedicated father.

Alonso Indacochea

Born in Lima, Peru and a proud East Coaster, Alonso taught English as a Second Language and spent time in the non-profit world before becoming a WordPress evangelist. Le gusta hablar en castellano y também em português. Although he misses the rain and clouds every once in a while, New Mexico, where he started a WordPress business, is his home for good. He lives with his wife, Kathleen, his energetic daughter, Josephine, toddler twin boys, Francisco and Iñigo, a neurotic dog, Rafa, and the various rabbits, quail, road runners and spiders that roam his backyard.

Pam Aungst

I own an agency in NJ that specializes in SEO & PPC. We have a very strong reputation for being experts in results-driven white-hat SEO and highly-effective PPC campaigns. We recommend WordPress to almost all of our clients, and consult with developers on how to maximize its search-engine-friendliness.

David Wank DMD

Dr. David A. Wank is a practicing general dentist and an authority on dental website development, search engine optimization, and social media. He received his dental degree from Harvard in 2003, is an active speaker, and is the president of Short Hills Design, LLC, a WordPress-based web development and Internet marketing firm for dentists and physicians that provides solutions across North America.

Dr. Wank is the the author of the The Web Design Workbook for Dentists, an 100+ page non-technical, online guide for dentists and dental team members that explains the website development process, search engine optimization, and social media in detail.   He is the founder of the “Internet Marketing for Dentists” group on Google+ and Facebook, and maintains an active Internet Marketing blog for dentists at his website: www.shorthillsdesign.com.

Corey Maass

Corey Maass is a full-stack web developer with a love for entrepreneurship and minimum viable everything. He built his first website in 1995, his first SaaS app in 2003, and his first WordPress plugin in 2009. In 2015, after 4 years of full-time WordPress development, he combined his passions and launched his first commercial plugin, Kanban for WordPress. He currently lives in Saugerties, New York.

Miriam Goldman

Miriam is a developer for a boutique digital marketing agency in Ottawa, Canada. She has been developing for over twelve years, and working with WordPress for eight.

She has spoken at WordCamp Ottawa and Montreal, and is one of the organizers for WordCamp Ottawa.

Outside of her development life, she is a black belt in karate, and also is a competitive latin ballroom dancer.

Keanan Koppenhaver

Keanan Koppenhaver is the Lead Developer at How-To Geek, one of the top 300 sites in the US, where he help the editorial team share all their awesome, geeky knowledge with the world.

He is passionate about mentoring other developers as well as teaching people that WordPress can be more than just a blogging platform.

Kevin Langley Jr.

Kevin has been working with WordPress since 2010. He recently joined Human Made in mid 2017, as a WordPress Engineer. Before working with Human Made, he has worked for various agencies and had a large stint freelancing as well. Over the years, Kevin has expanded his knowledge of WordPress by working on projects ranging from small microsites to enterprise level customizations for companies such as ESPN, Disney, and BigTen Networks.

Kevin resides in sunny Orlando, FL and when not working can be found spending time with his two children, tinkering on a side project, or riding his bicycle.

Daniel Olson

Dan is COO at DigitalCube, a WordPress solutions company with offices in the US and Japan. He lives and works in Philadelphia PA, home to the first WordCamp US.

His work includes building WordPress SaaS products focused on security and scalability, offering advanced security services through AWS, and providing managed web hosting support for eCommerce clients, large media organizations, and higher education.

Away from the keyboard he enjoys experimenting in the kitchen, eating everything, tasting all the beers, traveling to meet new people and helping with the family business, a pet boutique and bakery in South Philadelphia.

Juan Pablo Gomez

NYC based Web Designer. Built my first table-based site in 2004. Currently designing for FC Harlem, New York City FC. UX Design Mentor at Bloc.io

Daniel Schutzsmith

Daniel Schutzsmith is a rare breed – a hybrid of equal parts business, design, coding, and strategy – ready to change the world for the better!

As the Digital Technology Manager / Senior Web Developer for Amnesty International USA, Daniel is creating websites and mobile apps that engage supporters through great user experience design to advance human rights.

In addition to his work with AIUSA, he is also the Co-Founder of:
– Hudson Valley Tech Meetup, a monthly meetup bringing together technologists, designers, entrepreneurs and educators to share their passion and craft.
– Catskills Conf, a weekend-long event gathering of technologists and creators at The Ashokan Center in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.

He also gives back his time by teaching our next generation of web designers at SUNY New Paltz as an Adjunct Professor. Previously he taught at NYU SCPS and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Over the past decade he has worked with clients such as Adobe, Greenpeace, The Pixies, MTV, Phish, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Oxfam, PBS, They Might Be Giants, TBS, Pepsico, Dave Matthews Band and many more.

In his free time he enjoys inspirational wanderings through the streets of NYC, single malt scotches, and evenings at the drive-in with his wife and three kids around the corner from his house in rural upstate NY.

Andrew Roberts

CEO and founder of Ephox, the company behind TinyMCE. Andrew has led the TinyMCE team’s contribution to Gutenberg – the new WordPress editor – and has been involved in Gutenberg since its inception. TinyMCE is also an important open source project in its own right with over 100,000 downloads per month.

John Eckman

After a first career as an academic, John‘s been working in professional services agencies for the last 15+ years, and as the CEO at 10up for the last 3+.

He’s been focused on open source (primarily WordPress and Drupal) since 2006, as one of the organizers of WordCamp Boston and a frequent speaker at WordCamps (US, Ann Arbor, Toronto, New York, Rhode Island, Maine, and Boston) and DrupalCamps (Montréal, Western Mass, Connecticut, Boston). He’s also presented at many conferences outside of the WordPress community: Gilbane, Confab Higher Ed, CMS Expo, etc.

He received a BA from Boston University, an MA & PhD from the University of Washington, Seattle, and an MIS from Northeastern University.

He lives in Salem MA with his wife and dogs.

Joseph Hinson

Joseph Hinson is President and lead developer of Out:think Group, a firm that helps authors spread their message, grow their following and sell more books. He’s built over 200 websites on the WordPress platform and has been a WordPress loyalist since 2008.

WordCamp New York City is over. Check out the next edition!