Amanda Narcisi
Amanda has been no stranger to blogging. She started her first blog 8 years ago and also have done video blogs and Podcasts. She currently runs BOLD Pittsburgh a media company highlighting all the cool things to do in Pittsburgh. She pairs writing with the musings of a podcast to bring the city the best in where to eat, drink, have fun and be seen in and around Pittsburgh.
Andy Staple
Andy is a the Founder of Staple Web Design, and is a Designer and Front-end Developer who has been working with WordPress since its fork from B2. He builds interfaces for small businesses. He also is an organizer of the Buffalo WordPress Users meetup.
Angie Bergmann
Developing websites since 2000, Angie started using WordPress in the b2 days, before it was even WordPress. She counts among her strengths SEO and PPC skills, and design centered around accessibility and usability. Beyond WordPress, she is passionate about infertility advocacy, gaming, and German Shepherd Dogs. She is involved in the WP community as a co-organizer of the Northeast Ohio WordPress Meetup, and is the Lead Organizer for the inaugural WordCamp Northeast Ohio. During the day, she is the digital marketing specialist at Full Spectrum Marketing. At night, after routinely saving Azeroth from certain destruction, she does freelance webdev under the BergPress imprint.
Anthony Laurence
I’m a designer and developer that started making websites in the 90s on Angel Fire and Geo Cities. Now I’m making sites and applications in WordPress, AngularJS and other fancy-pants-ishness.
I’ve began using WordPresss around 2010. In that time I’ve seen it grow from making blogs and websites to a framework for making applications that can hold it’s own against many of the dedicated MVC structure frameworks available.
When I’m not trapped in a basement coding, I try to get outside, breath in some fresh air and muck about with my wife and two children.
Ben Dunkle
Ben Dunkle is a teacher, designer, and occasional artist. He’s listed as a core designer for WordPress.org, having designed thousands of icons for WordPress, including the Dashicons that we see in the wp-admin. Ben has organized and spoken at numerous WordCamps and runs a bi-weekly WordPress users meetup group.
Beth Soderberg
Beth Soderberg is an independent developer and digital communications strategist based out of Washington, DC. She focuses on building thoughtfully architected websites that enable each of her clients to optimize their online presence. She is also obsessive about clean code, solid design execution, and empowering the user. In her spare time Beth volunteers as the community representative for the WordPress Training Team, helps organize the WordPress DC Meetup, and is a co-organizer of the annual DCFemTech Hack for Good in Washington, DC.
Brian Layman
Brian Layman is a full time independent WordPress consultant working primarily to extend WordPress for use with evolving web technologies. Clients hire him to help them adopt features such as AMP, Ad Prebid and integration with new and evolving APIs. He is a featured WordPress Developer in “WordPress for Dummies (2nd edition)” by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. In addition to custom feature development, he specializes in migration to WordPress VIP hosting, legacy CMS site conversion, hacked site recovery and server security & optimizations.
He has designed and served as System Administrator for large dynamic WordPress installations hosted on Amazon AWS for companies such as Marsh-Mclennan, a fortune 50 company. He has created custom multi-site WordPress features for companies like Lexis Nexus and server optimization for Hewlett Packard. Popular sites like RedState.com have brought him in to convert their 212,000 site WordPress MU install to a WordPress MultiSite installation. Digital media companies such as the Moguldom Media Group and Heavy Inc. use him for implementing new ad technologies and WordPress VIP hosting development work. He has been a speaker at Blog World Expo in Vegas and NYC and numerous WordCamps since 2007. Brian conducts monthly presentations at the North East Ohio WordPress Meetup and is a co-organizer of WordCamp North East Ohio.
Christie Chirinos
Christie Chirinos is the newest partner in CalderaWP, the creators of multiple WordPress plugins including Caldera Forms, Ingot, FormWorks and URL Builder, taking on the role of business strategist. Christie brings with her experience as a community manager and digital project manager for various nonprofit organizations in New York City.
Devin Walker
Devin Walker is the founder of WordImpress, a San Diego based WordPress plugin company. He and the WordImpress team also serve as WordPress Community Consultants for Media Temple.
Walker has extensive experience developing and supporting popular plugins including GiveWP, the number 1 rated donation plugin for WordPress. Other popular plugins include Google Maps Builder, Yelp Widget Pro and WooCommerce Quick Checkout. In total, his plugins have more than 100,000 active installs and hundreds of 5-star reviews.
Outside of the WordPress world, Devin enjoys traveling, going to concerts, and playing a leisurely round of disc golf.
Heather Migliorisi
As a software engineer for Blackhawk Network (specifically GiftCards.com), Heather Migliorisi implements innovative ideas for the company’s website. Some of those ideas include developing the company’s custom pattern library and code-based style guide, responsive image techniques, and accessibility solutions. In her free time, Heather contributes to the Make WordPress Accessible project, the Accessible SVG Community group and the A11y Project.
Josh Pollock
Josh, is a WordPress plugin developer, educator and entrepreneur. He is the owner of CalderaWP, makers of Caldera Forms, and Ingot, the easiest A/B testing solution for WordPress. In addition he is a contributor to WordPress core, the WordPress REST API, and plugins by Foo Plugins, Postmatic, Pods, Aesop Interactive, WordImpress, GravityView and more.
One of Josh’s favorite things to do is to share what he has learned about WordPress plugin development, business and community. He writes regularly for Torque Magazine and has contributed to many other WordPress tutorial sites. He is also the author of the book The Ultimate Guide to the WordPress REST API.
Kathleen Kuznicki
Kathleen Kuznicki is a Patent Attorney registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. She works with individuals or businesses, including start-up businesses, to protect some of their most valuable assets, their intellectual property.
Innovative persons and their businesses who are working diligently to solve problems through their inventions should seek protection by obtaining a patent. Kathleen translates their inventive concepts into patents. She works with inventors to initially file their patent applications and also during the prosecution of their applications. After a patent is issued, she will pursue infringers.
Businesses work very hard to build their brand through marketing and providing superior goods and services. Kathleen helps businesses protect their branding, and the good will they have worked hard to establish in their brand, with trademark registration and aggressive defense of that registration.
She also advises clients that are being sued, or being threatened with an infringement suit, about the legal strategies that can be used for their defense. Other areas in which Kathleen advises clients are:
White Space, Patentability or Infringement analysis
Providing legal strategies in litigation matters that involve intellectual property
Drafting and/or reviewing non-disclosure and licensing agreements
Engaging with Foreign Counsel regarding international intellectual property matters
Strategies to protect trade secrets
Trademark searches
Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution filings
Kathleen earned her Juris Doctor degree from the Duquesne University School of Law. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the Pennsylvania State University, a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Microbiology-Medicine from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and 5 years post-doctoral research experience in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh. Though her background is based in Biology, Kathleen works on patent applications in a number of technical fields including medical devices, metallurgical compositions, sporting equipment, software, and manufactured articles.
Kevin Hoffman
Kevin Hoffman is a Pittsburgh-based web designer and developer who has been working with WordPress for the past nine years. As a Digital Media major at Drexel University, he studied a combination of web design, photography, and videography. Ever since, Kevin has taken an interest in the way media is presented on the web. He has followed the development of responsive images since the beginning and enjoys teaching others in the WordPress community what he has learned along the way.
Krystal O’Connor
Krystal (@kocotech)has worked in technology since the 90’s including working in the web hosting space and having run her own successful side business. She began working for Libsyn in December, 2010 providing technical support to podcast producers. Now, Krystal provides technical support, writes and maintains the Libsyn Knowledge Base, produces the video tutorials, manages the Libsyn Tutor YouTube channel, and co-hosts Libsyn Live.
Krystal has also appeared on other podcasts such as Libsyn’s The Feed, The Podcasters’ Roundtable, and The Podcasters’ Studio. She was the host of Bullet Talk Radio, and owner of Greenacres Media & Tech, LLC, a company providing digital education for new media and mobile technologies.
Lara Schenck
Lara Schenck is an independent web consultant and teacher. She teaches front-end and WordPress development through an online school called the Tackle Box, and provides both 1-on-1 tutoring and WordPress consulting services. Lara hails from a farm outside of Pittsburgh, PA, is an avid skier, and can make a mean cocktail. More at notlaura.com and @laras126.
Logan Kipp
Logan has been an intermittent WordPress user since “Strayhorn” 1.5 in 2005 and has used WordPress as a primary platform since “Coltrane” 2.7 in 2008. Logan has over seven years experience in the website hosting and security technology field, starting with three years at GoDaddy, followed by four years at SiteLock. Logan most recently served as SiteLock’s Lead Security Analyst before taking his current role as a Product Evangelist – WordPress earlier this year.
Michelle Ames
Overextended, overcommitted, entrepreneur & volunteer. Avid Scrabble™ player. Tea snob. Mom. WordPress fanatic. 11th hour expert. I am the owner and marketing diva at Marketed by Michelle, where I make a living through WordPress. I’m also an organizer of WordCamp Buffalo 2016 and lead organizer of WordCamp Rochester 2016.
Rich Robinkoff
Rich is a WordPress community advocate, WordCamp organizer and speaker. He also helps other organizers as a WordCamp Central Community Deputy. He has worked in the corporate world for almost two decades and brings that vast business experience to the WordPress community as a Project Manager. You can usually find him searching for his next great cup of coffee while he ponders his own self-worth as he learns to deal with a really bad case of impostor syndrome. When the opportunity arises, he also teaches web development at his local community college.
Tom Cottrill
Working with WordPress since v 1.9, I have managed development teams for large agencies before starting my own company. 90 percent of our work is customized WordPress, optimizing sites for SEO and speed, and integrating them with countless third party APIs.
I have been developing for over 18 years, and have developed sites for Fortune 500 companies, professional athletes, and countless small, medium and enterprise businesses.
Will Reynolds Young
Will Reynolds Young is a foodie, social media fiend, internet & music addict. He is also a skin Care Chief Digital Officer, and Pittsburgh Tweet-Up co-organizer.