Wesley Faulkner
Wesley Faulkner is a first-generation American. He is a founding member of the government transparency group Open Austin and ran for Austin City Council in 2016. His professional experience also includes work as a social media and community manager for the software company Atlassian, and various roles for the computer processor company AMD and the Dell. Wesley Faulkner serves as a board member for South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) and works a Developer Advocate for MongoDB.
Cate DeRosia
In 2015, Cate stepped into the WordPress community to investigate if it was possible to find work outside of development or design. She discovered that as WordPress usage increases and businesses grow, many jobs are opening up for people with soft business skills and/or a talent for content.
After test driving some of these options, she currently works editing and writing content and using her soft business skills to run operations at Pressware.
Beyond answering her questions and finding employment, she’s had the opportunity to meet some amazing people. Her commitment to community building has lead to being a co-organizer of the local meetup, regular WordCamp speaker, and the previous organizer for the 2018 and 2019 Grand Rapids (MI) WordCamps.
She has dedicated the last 20 years to family development and enjoys sports, exploring new places, and making pretty things, often with yarn. When she writes, you’ll find it at atypical.ink
Ross Johnson
Ross is the founder of the design agency 3.7 DESIGNS and premium plugin company Snap Orbital. An eighteen year veteran of the field and part time faculty of Michigan State University, he provides a holistic view of business, design and development.
Amit Rathi
A developer, traveler, and entrepreneur in the pursuit of a digital nomad lifestyle.
Co-founded The MobiDev, LLC — a technology solution provider specializing in mobile-first application.
Hobbies include reading articles on Medium, attending Meetups, and sharing great memes.
Topher DeRosia
Topher is a husband and father from Grand Rapids MI. He’s been a web developer since 1995 and a WordPress Developer since 2010. He currently works for BigCommerce as a WordPress Developer Evangelist.
Kevin Skarritt
Kevin is the creator of a new marketing app (coming fall of 2019) called Kama Social. He’s the author of “Brand Archetypes” and the co-host of the Brand Archetypes podcast. He was ranked as a “Top 100 Social Media Influencer for 2015” by StatSocial.com. His digital agency, Flock Marketing, is a 10-time winner of Forbes Magazine’s “Best of the Web” award. Kevin graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in Biology and a minor in Fine Art. His hobbies include snow skiing, water skiing, tournament chess, private piloting, reading, upright bass guitar, and making sushi.
Sophia DeRosia
I am an eighteen year old artist, writer, musician, and brand new adult. I have lots of passions, and one of them is taking care of myself, and using what I’ve learned to help others take care of themselves as well.
Eric Malcolm
I develop object-oriented clean front-end code and lead accessibility efforts on agile development teams.
As a front-end developer I help architect solutions while creating usable, human-friendly and accessible websites, interfaces, and apps.
I also help to lead the Metro Detroit WordPress Meetup group and am the Lead Organizer for WordCamp Detroit (2018 & 2019).
Toyin Akinmusuru
Toyin is a longtime web developer and software architect based in Austin, Texas. He has worked on an assorted array of commerce packages and teaches the basics of ecomm at the WooCommerce meetup in Austin. Toyin primarily develops for Magento and has worked on ecommerce site for large retailers like Balfour, Kendra Scott and Canon USA. In his non-work time, Toyin tinkers with what he calls his greatest project, daughter Annika.
Lindsey Rampton
I’m a web applications developer with over 7 years of experience working within an agency environment, freelance, and as a provider of shared services. For the last two years, I’ve worked for Zingerman’s Community of Businesses and lead a small team of web developers, marketing professionals, and provide recommended strategies for the 10 businesses within the “ZCoB”. I’ve also helped develop content strategies for businesses while I worked freelance and have written content to support these recommendations.
**Likes** : Clean Code, Modular Design, Mapping Experiences, Mobile Forward, MVC’s, SCSS
**Dislikes** : Internet Explorer, Gluten
Hien Lam
Hien co-owns Huck Finch a brand experience studio that blazes a clear trail forward for purpose-driven startups and creative entrepreneurs to a fresh, yet timeless brand. Their framework focuses on brand strategy, brand identity, and storytelling to bring out a brand’s true colors, make it impossible to ignore, and ensure its absolutely irresistible to its ideal audience.
In addition to running Huck Finch Hien also co-host the Life on Brand podcast – the podcast for change makers and rulebreakers who want to live life on their own terms and runs a personal development blog called Chillpill, which distills lessons from Stoicism, Buddhism, and Minimalism to show people how to live up to their potential.
Rene Morozowich
Rene is a Pittsburgh-based WordPress freelancer who works with small businesses. She creates amazing websites for her clients and helps them extend their reach with lead generation and email marketing. Rene loves traveling, reading, talking about money and roller skating.
Gerri Jensen
My experience includes founding and managing a national nonprofit organization and being the publisher of an online line mage which uses WordPress. I have been a certified SCORE mentor for three years.
Donata Kalnenaite
I’m a data privacy attorney, a Certified Information Privacy Professional and the President of a software company that generates Privacy Policies. I taught GDPR to other attorneys at the Illinois State Bar Association and my privacy law compliance guides have been downloaded and used by companies such as Deloitte, GE Appliances, Jockey, and Slack. In terms of actually fun things that I do – I’m a beekeeper!
Patricia Robertson
Patricia is a writer, speaker and blogger. She is a retired minister and a teacher. She has had a WordPress website for the past three year and has been blogging for over five years.
Kim Smith
I’m a third-generation entrepreneur; it’s in my blood. I’ve always known that I wanted to work for myself, but the “what” didn’t become clear until sometime in the mid-90s…mainly because the technology hadn’t been invented yet! As the internet, the world wide web, and websites started becoming a part of our world, I found my “what”. I knew this was what I was meant to do. I saw this as an amazing way to level the playing field for small businesses against their larger competition…and it could be done at an affordable price! My mission was set and I moved forward.
Since there weren’t any classes or formal education on the subject at the time, I had to teach myself. I joined some listservs (email groups) of people just like me who were trying to learn from scratch. We would look at source code and help each other figure out how to code various things in HTML, which was all we had to work with at the time…yup…HTML and Microsoft WordPad! It was an exciting time in web development, as it seemed like something new was coming out every day…frames, tables, forms – and a bunch of nonsense like JavaScript code tricks, Java applets, autoplay MIDI files, animated GIFs, scrolling marquees, Flash, guestbooks before we finally got (angels singing) CSS!
I took on my first client in January of 2000 and have been growing in skill, size, and services ever since. My clients know that I’m not a flaky web designer who builds a site and they can never reach again for updates or maintenance; I actually clean up messes those guys leave behind! Some of my clients have been with me a dozen years or more and they can trust that I’m available by phone, email, text, or Facebook Messenger – AND, they never have to press “1” for English! I talk to them in terms that they can understand and often draw pictures to illustrate difficult concepts. I teach them as much as they want to learn about updating their websites, including blogging – and most importantly, I teach them how to market their company. After all, who knows their company better than the owner? I enable them with free and low-cost tools that are easy to use that help them to reach their target market without breaking the bank — and I teach them how to effectively USE those tools!
Tyler Lau
Tyler originates from Lawrence, Kansas and spends a great deal of his time traveling. He joined Sandhills Development two years ago and bounces from marketing to operations to support. In the past two years, Tyler has been to about 15 WordCamps on the behalf of Sandhills Development. When not working on the WordPress side of Sandhills Development you can find him helping on the brewery side of Sandhills Development, or better known as Sandhills Brewing.
Andy Melichar
ScrumMaster, poodle puff dad, and WordPress geek.
Allison Spooner
Allison is a writer from Lansing, Michigan. She is the author of Flash in the Dark: A Collection of Flash Fiction. Allison discovered short and flash fiction when she realized she didn’t have the attention span to write a novel. She gives workshops on flash fiction and writing and her work has been featured in the science fiction anthology, Future Visions: Volume 2. Her next book, The Problem with Humans — And Other Stories, is coming soon.