Aaron Reimann
Aaron is a designer, turned developer, turned an agency starter. He has been working with WordPress since 2008. He has worked on WordPress projects with many Fortune 100 companies and many other businesses. He regularly speaks at Meetups and Wordcamps and currently helps lead the Atlanta WordPress Meetup.
Adam Warner
Adam W. Warner discovered the world of 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 product evangelist for WordPress in spirit and personality, and that also happens to be his job title at SiteLock. In addition to WordPress, Adam is passionate about his family, robots and of course, life, the universe and everything.
Amit Ramani
My background is embedded software programming. I have worked on a diverse range of mobile operating systems, including embedded Linux, Android and Windows Mobile.
What I enjoy most is working with WordPress in close conjunction with Google Analytics. It is exciting to discover gems of data in GA and then implementing the fixes and/or enhancements on the site. Most of the time, the results are phenomenal! For example, a small tweak helped reduce my average bounce rate.
Bill Gadless
President and Co-Founder of emagine, a 50+-person WordPress-based Digital Agency.
As a non-developer and a quasi-designer at best, Bill has always focused on being on the forefront of the business side of the web industry. Observing a lack of content and thought leadership for web entrepreneurs, Bill has dedicated a significant portion of his time to speaking on issues of entrepreneurship, sales, marketing and business strategy for freelancers and small web agency owners. Obsessed with everything sales and marketing, Bill’s insights have appeared on various occasions in MarketingSherpa, dozens of industry sites and publications and on the national speaking circuit. Prior to emagine, he developed his marketing expertise while building a highly successful direct marketing venture at 20 years old.
With a focus on emagine’s core industries and national expansion, Bill has focused obsessively on building emagine’s brand within the B2B, High-Tech and Healthcare sectors. Starting in the Boston region, Bill has successfully taken emagine from a regional player to a national leader in emagine’s target industries.
Bill is laser-focused on evangelizing WordPress as more than a “blogging tool” or “mom-and-pop website platform”. He and emagine have been instrumental in the adoption of WordPress by companies that previously would have resisted, from large hospitals to pharmaceutical companies to multi-billion dollar B2B enterprises.
Bill tours the WordCamp circuit nationally speaking on issues related to growth strategy for WordPress entrepreneurs. He resides in Boca Raton, Florida with his wife Krystal and regularly travels back and forth between emagine’s Florida and Massachusetts offices.
Chris Bernard
Over the last 17 years, Chris Bernard has handled online and offline marketing campaigns for some of the best known brands on the planet including: HSN (various brands), GM, Caterpillar, ditech.com, GM Goodwrench, Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Sears, DeVry University, Keller Graduate School, Budget Rent-A-Car, US Cellular, Motorola, Cintas, USBank, Ryder Truck Rental, Edward Jones, Sherwin Williams, Michelin, and Midas.
As one of the best digital marketing consultants in america and founder/chief digital, officer of dock29 marketing, a digital advertising agency, he is tasked with bringing the same elite strategic thought, technologies and processes of big agencies serving global brands to the small and medium sized business market.
Mr. Bernard couples his big agency talent, with an in-depth understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities associated with small and medium sized business marketing, to score exponential business growth.
For more on Chris Bernard and dock29 marketing please visit the website http://www.dock29i.com
Chris Edwards
Chris is currently the Director of Technology at Effin Amazing, an analytics and growth consultancy. He is a 16-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.
Chris Flannagan
I’m an Alabama native who’s travelled and lived all over this country and world. I ended up in Sarasota, Florida after grad school and have been here for 7 years. I began building websites in Junior High and never looked back. WordPress has been my passion for close to three years now. I’m part of The WP Crowd and blog regularly there and on my own website. I’m the Director of Digital Technology for Quasar Bio-Tech which fortunately involves a lot of work on WooCommerce and WordPress.
Chris Wiegman
Chris is a developer who has been working on WordPress since 2008. Over the years Chris built one of the largest security plugins in the WordPress community as well as numerous other plugins and solutions. When not coding Chris loves to teach and has presented at numerous WordCamps and other conferences as well as taught computer security for St. Edward’s University and other University courses ranging from computers to aviation.
Cliff Seal
Cliff is a Lead UX Engineer at Pardot, a Salesforce company, where he’s also the resident WordPress nerd.
He’s the co-founder multiple profitable side projects, such as Evermore and TuneDig. He co-organizes amUX, a morning meetup focused for local UXers. He’s an accomplished speaker who’s given talks around the world.
Cliff lives with his wife, April, in Atlanta, where he can be found at a concert, cycling around the city, or playing guitar.
Dave Clements
Dave is a geek through and through. When he’s not watching documentaries on the migratory patterns of African animals or the wonder of engineering marvels old and new, he’s probably sitting at his computer working on someone’s WordPress site. An engineer by education, Dave’s passion is in solving problems with elegance and efficiency.
Outside of WordPress (and geeky documentaries), Dave is a devoted husband to Marti and proud father to Ellie (3) and Jack (1). He lives on a diet of green tea, hummus, equality and curiosity.
David Bisset
David is a full-time freelancer developer living in South Florida (Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area). He is a WordPress developer and specializes in BuddyPress sites/applications.
Davis is also a occasional WordCamp speaker, meetup organizer, conference organizer and father of three and husband of one. He built conferencia.io and works with Awesome Motive on the Envira Gallery plugin.
David Laietta
Organizer WordPress and WordCamp Orlando. Developer of Webs. Reader of Books. Writer of Words. Destroyer of Sentence Structure.
Dawn-Marie Mutell
Dawn-Marie Mutell, Founder and CEO of Life’s Necessities and Luxuries – Home, Body, Soul and Life-Styling business. She is a versatile wardrobe stylist, makeup artist, event planner, personal shopper, professional organizer, life coach and travel consultant who has over 20 years experience in the fashion, beauty, & music entertainment industries.
Dawn-Marie has been a guest speaker at The Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, The Art Institute of Tampa, the Dress for Success organization and many more. She is a certified Image Consultant and Personal Shopper through The Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC. Learn more at http://www.lifesnecessitiesandluxuries.com
Erik Kuna
Erik Kuna is the Vice President of Operations and Technology for KelbyOne, an educational training company driven by a passion to provide incredible training to their members while making it affordable to everyone. Over the last fifteen years he has been leading teams of people to bring award-winning training to the world. From producing industry leading training conferences, workshops, seminars, classes, books, magazines, apps, videos, blogs, websites and webcasts as well as entire online e-learning libraries filled with thousands of videos, he’s been involved in all aspects of training. He’s also worked with partners such as Adobe, Google, Canon, B&H Photo and more to produce online training and events to help their customers and clients unlock their full potential via education.
Gary Kovar
A Mad-Lib Bio (fill in the blanks to play along!):
In 1999 Gary discovered [a web technology] and the web was never the same (for him anyway). By day, an E-Commerce Ninja involved in all facets of product sourcing, marketing, sales, [noun], and fulfillment. By night, a Freelance Plugin [animal] with a penchant for making data sit down and [verb]. By hobby, perched atop a multi-[noun] network of small restaurant advocacy sites.
Proud father of 2, happily married for 15 years, and always excited and [adjective] to see how others use WordPress to achieve their goals. Check him out at binarygary.com or @binargary.
Jean Perpillant
I am the co-founder of Design Theory, and have been creating and managing websites for individuals and small businesses for over 8 years. Customer service has been a focus of mine since my first job when I turned 16, and it is what I believe has kept me in business to this day. You can find me on most social media channels to get a glimpse of my hobbies, interests, and tips on web design and photography.
Jessica Garbarino
Jessica Garbarino is the founder and owner of Every Single Dollar, a company dedicated to helping single women navigate the world of personal finance. She realized that she was experiencing a financial hangover in her early 30s after the lifestyle choices in her 20s caused her to rack up debt. After paying off $56,000 of debt, she felt called to teach other single women how to manage their money, pay off debt, and instill financial confidence. She offers individual financial coaching, speaks on personal finance, and writes and produces video on various financial topics with the single woman in mind. Jessica lives the debt free life in sunny South Florida.
John P. Gamboa
John is a technical project manager at WP Engine facilitating the technical success of its largest enterprise customers. He worked more than two years on its support team in a variety of capacities helping customers with a wide-range of issues. John also spent the better part of four years living in Asia, where he worked as a technical editor, writer, teacher and web developer before coming back to the U.S.
Josh Pollock
Josh, is a WordPress plugin developer, educator and entrepreneur. He is the owner of CalderaWP, makers of Caldera Forms, a drag and drop form builder, as well as 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.
Lain Livingston
Lain’s passion for branding stems from a deep rooted interest in creative expression. He has built and led the creative team at a Fortune 500 company with $1.7 billion in annual sales and was also the Senior Marketing Manager at a start-up that hit $1.7 billion in annual sales just five years after launching. Lain has also served clients such as Mohawk Flooring, Susan G. Komen Foundation, and Oldcastle as well as many smaller start-ups. Lain’s work has been published in multiple international industry-related books and national ad campaigns.
Lain currently resides in Tampa, Florida with his wife and two kids. He is employed full-time at SureCrete, where he is responsible for overseeing a complete overhaul of the company’s brand. Lain is currently writing his first book, which will outline the essential components every company needs to build a strong and effective brand.
Lauren Jeffcoat
I have been building WordPress websites for over seven years and currently am part of the WPML Customer Support team. I love building WordPress websites and have worn many hats in the world of web development including Project Manager, Customer Service Representative, Account Strategist, and Web Designer.
Originally from New England, I now live in Surfside Beach, South Carolina. I enjoy sharing my knowledge along with tips and tricks that I have learned either through furthering my education or personal experience.
I have successfully implemented video library strategies on a number of websites and believe this is an untapped marketing channel that is quickly growing. Thinking outside the box can lead to creative ways of utilizing Video Libraries on almost any site.
Lisa Melegari
Working as a professional web content writer and social media manager at We Do Web Content, Inc. pays Lisa’s bills. Volunteering her time as an organizer of WordPress Orlando Meetups and WordCamp Orlando 2016 keeps Lisa sane. When she’s not writing, managing, or organizing, she’s cooking tasty treats to bring to meetups and Orlando’s best co-working space, Canvs. Video chat with her and there’s a good chance you’ll see at least one of her 11 cats.
Mason James
Mason James is the Founder & CEO of Valet and wearer of a great many hats, including overseeing business development and fostering agency and team growth.
He started Valet, originally known as the WP Valet, in 2011 as the original WordPress support company, because he couldn’t find high-end help for clients who needed it. Since no one was offering the caliber of support he envisioned, he decided it was time to hang his sign out-becoming a trailblazer in the digital realm.
Micah Wood
Micah is a professional WordPress developer and architect who is committed to continuously improving his understanding of WordPress and sharing his insights with the greater WordPress community. He currently works at Narwhal Digital as the team lead for enterprise WordPress projects and helps organize two local WordPress meetup groups.
Mike Schinkel
Mike is a WordPress Architect and serial startup entrepreneur that whose guilty pleasure it developing software to empower others to be more productive when building WordPress sites.
In 2010 Mike co-hosted The Business of WordPress Conference, in 2015 co-founded The Atlanta WordPress Coder’s Guild meetup and from 2009 on has spoken at many WordCamps in the Southeast as well as LoopConf 2015 in Vegas.
Mike has architected and co-developed a marketing intranet for a global soft drink leader, a content marketing website for a leading Texas-based computer vendor, a law rm CMS product for a New York specialty agency focusing on the top 200 global law firms and tens of other complex sites and applications, all based on WordPress.
Today Mike’s primary focus is on WPLib — a foundation library for complex WordPress applications — and helping agencies architect and build complex WordPress sites for their clients.
Nathan Ingram
Nathan specializes in building easy-to-use web sites that help small businesses, professional firms, and nonprofit organizations look great on the web.
He is a regular instructor at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress, Web Design, and Freelance Business Development via live webinar.
He also works with web developers individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their freelance businesses.
You can learn more about Nathan at his website at https://nathaningram.com.
Nathan Reimnitz
Nathan is a certified expert WordPress developer from Scottsdale, AZ. He’s a full-time freelancer for Codeable.io, Clarity.fm, LinkedIn Profinder & GoDaddy Pro Connect.
You can get to know more about Nathan on his website or connect with him via twitter.
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 www.collegepaperreview.com.
Raymmar Tirado
Robin Vander Velde
I started creating websites in 1995 as a barter deal with the first local ISP in Hays, KS.
I’ve been a SysAdmin and Tech Support (and most everything else!) for our family-owned ISP.
I picked up creating websites again in 2010 and discovered WordPress in 2012 when I formed Madeira Tech. I’ve never looked back!
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 runs CESquared a project management, WordPress Development and Maintenance Company. 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 2016 will bring to the tech space in Florida!
Scott Mann
Scott’s been managing amazing teams of creatives and makers since 2001 with his company, Highforge. They switched from Movable Type to WordPress in 2009 for commercial projects. These days they use Genesis and Shopify for a lot of their projects.
He’s a certified Google Adwords Partner (has been since 2002) and a community advocate in Orlando. For a few summers, he worked as a tour guide at Disney. His driving passion is to empower others to grow their businesses and improve their communities.
He’s a gamer, backpacker and he plays racquetball recklessly in his free time. He’d also like you to know about www.BeTheMatch.org, a non-profit organization that saves lives (like his wife’s).
Syed Balkhi
Syed Balkhi is an award winning young entrepreneur with several 7 figure online businesses. He was recognized as the top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by United Nations. His work has been featured in Forbes, Inc, Washington Post, FoxBusiness, Entrepreneur, Wired, and many top publications.
In 2009, he created WPBeginner which is now one of the largest free WordPress resource site on the web.
In 2011, he created a site called List25, which has over 1.8 million subscribers and 380 Million video views on Youtube.
In 2013, he launched OptinMonster, the best lead generation software that helps businesses convert website visitors into subscribers. Every month, OptinMonster forms are viewed billions of times and help convert millions of abandoning visitors into subscribers.
Aside from these, Syed is also the founder of WPForms, Soliloquy, and Envira Gallery.
Trey Praytor
Trey, a native Texan, traveled all across the southern US before settling down in sunny Sarasota, Florida with his beautiful wife and daughter. For the last 2 years, he’s worked with Valet.io in support, account management, sales and strategy.
When he’s not in front of a laptop, you can find him building hardwood furniture in his garage.