Speakers

Keynote Speaker

• Rachel Cherry

  

  Rachel Cherry (She/her) is a freelance software engineer and consultant with a focus on accessibility, Higher Education, and WordPress. She enjoys helping organizations address their accessibility barriers and teaching others how to be more inclusive on the web.

  Rachel is also a maintainer/owner of the WP Rig WordPress starter theme and the Director of WPCampus, a community and conferences focused on using WordPress in the world of higher education.

  Rachel lives in upstate New York but you can find her on Twitter, GitHub, and bamadesigner.com.

  Session

  • Keynote Address November 16, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT+0000 in Jordan Ballroom

Speakers

• AmyJune Hineline

  

  AmyJune is an active contributor in the open source world. As the Open Source Community Ambassador at Kanopi Studios, AmyJune helps to ensure her team remains connected to open-source communities.

  AmyJune co-organizes various open source camps and conventions throughout North America, all while helping each of the communities be more inclusive. This focus enables others to forge deep community connections that benefit the whole. As a self-described non-coder, she helps communities discover how they can contribute back in more ways than code.

  In addition to her work building community connections, AmyJune is an avid geocacher, noted Volkswagen enthusiast, and eats with her elbows on the table.

• Asenath ‘CC’ Horton

  

  A Utah native, Asenath ‘CC’ Horton is a web programmer for Aramsco, an international industrial supply company, based out of New Jersey. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, and has practiced in the field of business since in 1999. As a self-taught programmer, she has deployed over 70 web applications throughout her career, working either for the business or closely with team to create and implement strategic digital assets to streamline their workflows, sophisticate their market data, and impact their ability to compete in the market. As a scrum practitioner, she loves agile project management and team development, and knows how to bring a project solidly from idea to complete while retaining and building the team. In addition to programming, she is a ninja chef, gardening yogi, and practicing puppy whisperer.

• Ashley Chadwick

  

  Ashley’s experience with WordPress dates back nearly 10 years. She currently works with WordPress in the higher ed sector. Previously, she specialized in building websites for small businesses. Ashley hails from Wyoming and Montana. In her (rare) spare time, she enjoys any food made with dark chocolate, running, and all things outdoors.

• Bet Hannon

  

  Bet has worked with businesses and nonprofits for over 10 years, helping them build WordPress websites, integrate other communication channels, and learn how to use digital marketing tools more effectively. She is the CEO of BH Marketing, that designs, builds and maintains accessible sites, including membership and ecommerce sites. Bet is a member of the WP Support Team, and lives in Bend, Oregon, US, and is one of the organizers of the Bend WP Meetup.

• Braxton Wood

  

  A French poet once said, “Perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.” It is this sentiment that Braxton Wood strives to operate from 100% of the time. Originally hailing from the “Silicon Desert” of Phoenix, Arizona, Braxton specializes in removing bottlenecks that often plague small businesses. Having spent 10 years in marketing, another 5 years in software, as well as managing the administrative systems and training programs for 9 figure companies, he has developed a keen eye for streamlining internal and external processes to help small businesses scale with as little friction as possible.

• Dave Lewis

  

  Dave Lewis’s background includes more than twenty years developing and delivering training to public and private sector businesses and organizations. Those trainings covered a broad spectrum of topics including software training and support, computer repair, communications, public speaking, and video conferencing. His experience includes time helping national and international organizations use their web presence and technology more effectively. He also has over twenty years experience in martial arts.

  Dave has lived in Treasure Valley his entire life and with his wife spend their time traveling with their four children and three grandchildren.

• David Mark Brown

  

  David is an authorpreneur determined to discover the natural evolution of digital storytelling through stuff like reader interaction, augmented reality, gamification, collaborative StoryVerses and episodic story structure.

  David is the pioneer of Pirate Publishing and the Captain of the pirate ship StoryShop (a writing platform and community). He invites you to #JoinTheStory via StoryShop.io, StoryShop University, and StoryShop Summit.

  His published works span across all ages and several genres. Mostly, he enjoys exploding things. If you‘ve read for twenty pages and nothing has been blown up or shot, then David must be losing his edge.

• David Needham

  

  David Needham is a Developer Advocate at Pantheon where he focuses on developer education and training. When he’s not blogging about productivity at davidneedham.me or speaking at conferences, you can probably find him with his bicycle-lovingfamily playing board games in Champaign, IL.

• David Ryan

  

  Dave Ryan is an Interdisciplinary WordPress Developer at Bluehost, where he focuses on helping build WordPress and supportingthe WordPress community.

  In the past Dave has worked for large publishers and
  universities, scaling high-traffic WordPress sites by blending his
  skills in information design, journalism and web development.

  Dave lives in Phoenix, loves a good taco and will like every photo of your dog on Instagram.

• Dennis Smith

  

  Dennis J. Smith is the bestselling author of “Promote Your Business Or Cause Using Social Media” and instructor that has the drive and passion to teach individuals and home business owners how to use the power of Social Media Marketing, Webinars, WordPress, MailChimp, ConvertKit, Chatfuel, ClickFunnels, Udemy plus online marketing tools so they can grow their business both off and online. He published his 2nd book titled “Udemy Life” which features interviews of several Udemy instructors. Udemy Life is currently available on Amazon Kindle. 

  He teaches popular Udemy Marketing courses and run the websites Online Course Coupons, Free Course Daily to help instructors promote their courses beyond Udemy and to help students around the world learn skills for lifetime successDennis holds workshops in Boise, Idaho and works for ClickFunnels. During his free time he enjoys road trips to California, the Oregon Coast, Seattle, Bend, exploring Idaho, enjoying great Thai food, craft beer, drinking lots of (strong) coffee, sharing his knowledge with friends and Facebook acquaintances.

• Erik Wardell

  

  I have the privilege or coaching WordPress site owners and freelancers through the SEO process on a daily basis at Pathfinder SEO in Basalt, Colorado. In my role as an SEO coach, I get to take the complex and confusing world of search and make it approachable for ordinary people who know they need to get found in Google, but don’t know where to start. I spend the rest of my time spreading the word about the benefits of guided SEO.

• Erin Smith

  

  Currently working as a freelance WordPress developer, Erin loves exploring the possibilities of WordPress and pushing it in new directions. When not working, you’ll find Erin spending time with her husband and five kids, playing board games or squeezing a Netflix session in.

• Gillian Hill

  

  Gillian Hill is a Scottish transplant who has lived in Boise for 4 years. A former real estate attorney, she now writes and edits for a living while wrangling her two small boys and getting them into the Idaho outdoors as much as possible. She regularly creates content for business web pages, and writes articles and blog posts, when she isn’t writing her own novels and short stories.

• Heather Carlson

  

  Heather Carlson is a Boise State University alumna with a B.F.A in graphic design/marketing and a M.A. in communication. She is the associate director of advancement communications at Boise State where she manages the digital presence/graphic identity for University Advancement.

• Jim Harmer

  

  Jim Harmer started his first blog during law school and by the time he graduated, the blog was earning enough that it has become his full-time work for the last several years.  He has built multiple blogs to millions of page views and dollars in revenue.  Jim and his business partner Ricky Kesler are best known for their popular Youtube channel Income School which is followed by nearly 100,000 internet marketing and SEO enthusiasts from around the world.

• Kim Sherman-Labrum

  

  Kim started with the Idaho SBDC in 1998 as the regional administrative assistant as she pursued her degree. After several years, she took over the training program and turned it from an under-performing, deficit program to an award winning program with a surplus budget. In 2012, she became a business consultant specializing in online marketing, social media, graphic/web design. Over the years, she has designed curriculum and taught classes on a variety of business and technology topics. She planned and executed a rural outreach program that caught the eye of Google and was featured in a video for their Get Your Business Online program. She holds a B.A. in Graphic Design from Boise State University as well as a Credential of Readiness Harvard Business School CORe. She was recently named a High Impact Partner for the Grow with Google program.

• Link Porterfield

  

  Link Porterfield is the Founding Member of epic.network who works with small business owners to lighten their technology burden by providing experienced management and guidance.
  Link knows it can be overwhelming to keep up with both the rapidly changing landscape of technology in the workplace and the demanding requirements of its continual upkeep, yet it can be disastrous to ignore either. His business interests keep him immersed in those critical areas and he enjoys being able to implement that knowledge for his customers so they can focus on running their business. Link is a seasoned Linux administrator with two decades of experience in managing online services. He is enthusiastic about open source software and system integration. He is a Microsoft Cloud Solutions Provider and a Xero Certified Advisor. He has been a member of the Boise WordPress MeetUp since 2016 and volunteers as a co-organizer. He can also be found serving as an Ambassador for the Caldwell Chamber of Commerce.

• Micah Wood

  

  A professional WordPress developer for over a decade, Micah has worked on sites for Fortune 100 companies, has released over a dozen WordPress plugins, is a frequent speaker at WordCamps, co-organizes the WordPress Gwinnett meetup, is a co-host on the WP Square One podcast and shares his knowledge by blogging on WordPress development topics. Currently, Micah works at Bluehost and spends most of his time contributing to WordPress core.

• Mike Ebert

  

  Mike Ebert has been developing and marketing websites for 15 years and has been using WordPress since 2009. He has been an agency founder, in-house web developer, consultant, and freelancer. Now he’s co-founder of Luhnar, a company focused on democratizing innovative cloud tech, starting with a smart CDN. When he’s not doing Internet stuff, he enjoys camping in the wilds of Idaho, board games, model rockets, and spending time with his wife and six kids.

• Ricky Kesler

  

  Serial entrepreneur Ricky Kesler is a founder of Income School, a business dedicated to helping people improve the income side of the financial equation. He spent his early career as a Chemical Engineer, and then as a Business Management guy at big companies. But his passion for entrepreneurship got the better of him and in 2014, he became a blogger, podcaster, and YouTuber after going into business with his high school friend Jim Harmer. Ricky lives in Meridian, ID with his wife and 4 awesome children.

• Russell Fair

  

  Russell has long had a passion for design and technology. He started writing code for the web at age fifteen, began his career as a web developer shortly after college, and began working with WordPress in 2006. Over the past decade plus he has done everything from creating custom theme frameworks, authoring dozens of plug-ins, contributing to core, organizing multiple WordCamps, and has mentored several other developers, many of whom are now working professionally with WordPress. He especially enjoys working on Continuous Integration and Deployment processes, as well as DevOps.

• Stacy Clements

  

  Stacy Clements is the owner of Milepost 42, a technology partner for small business owners who want to work on their business, not the “techie stuff” needed to support it.

  Before starting her business, Stacy spent 23 years in the United States Air Force, working in communications, cyber operations, and project management. Dubbed “a fixer, a problem solver, and a pitbull”, she now focuses on fixing WordPress sites, solving technical problems for small business owners, and relentlessly promoting cybersecurity practices.

• Stephen Locker

  

  Stephen Locker is a web developer and co-owner of Happy Prime, a strategic web agency. He believes in the power of open source, open science, and sharing. He has more than a decade of web experience working in higher education. As a web professional, Stephen spends his time working on content architecture, front-end development, and design. Outside of work, he enjoys socializing and good food.

• Taylor Waldon

  

  Taylor (Elizabeth-Rose) Waldon is the Content Writer for Impress.org, creators of GiveWP and WP Business Reviews. She has a passion for WordPress and over 8 years of professional experience in marketing, website content management, as well as content writing and editing. She spent a few years traveling and living in various locations around the United States while supporting herself through remote work. Recently, Taylor resettled in her hometown of San Diego, where she lives with her two dogs and explores San Diego through mini hiking adventures.

• Theresa Smith

  

  Theresa is a Certified StoryBrand Guide and website designer based in Fruitland, Idaho. As a former CrossFit gym owner, she has built a specialty niche focusing on building websites for fitness and nutrition facilities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication studies from the University of Maryland and a certificate in graphic and web design from Boston University’s Center for Digital Imaging Arts.

• Tomas Mulder

  

  Tomas has been building websites since 2002, and WordPress websites since 2010. He has coded for major brands like Boppy, Frontier Airlines, and The Lumineers. Working as a freelancer under the company name Aquamarine, Tomas now specializes in custom WordPress theme development.

• Tracy Lay

  

  Designer, Trekkie, animal lover, and snarky introvert, Tracy Lay is the owner of digiVisual design, a boutique design experience helping entrepreneurs level up their branding to attract their perfect-fit people. Design, when done right, does a lot more than look great. Design conveys meaning on a deep, wordless level, and leads the people you’re dying to work with on a journey from curious to customer to raving fan. With 20+ years of professional experience in design, Tracy has helped all kinds of business owners uplevel their brand presence and do better business with great design.