{"id":6,"date":"2014-12-02T19:59:01","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T19:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2015.atlanta.wordcamp.org\/speakers\/"},"modified":"2015-02-20T17:30:33","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T22:30:33","slug":"speakers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/atlanta.wordcamp.org\/2015\/speakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Speakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSteven Slack\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t
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Steven Slack is a freelance developer at S2 Web. He collaborates with companies, agencies and individuals to build custom WordPress themes and plugins. In 2014 he helped with Asheville NC\u2019s first ever WordCamp and is playing a part in the 2015 Asheville WordCamp as well. <\/p>\n

As of October 2014 he has been working in the Craftpeak office in downtown Asheville, a space which has allowed for the collaboration with a solid group of designers and developers. He also does development work with Big Bridge, a design agency based in Asheville as well.<\/p>\n

Steven is fluent in Portuguese as well as any front-end language, can be seen biking or running through Pisgah National Forest, and enjoys the lovely company of his wife.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNathalie Lussier\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t
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\"nathalie-lussier-large\"<\/p>\n

Nathalie Lussier is an award-winning entrepreneur. She graduated with a degree in Software Engineering and a job offer from Wall Street. In a gutsy move, she turned down this job to start her own business right out of college. Now running a highly profitable software and training company, Nathalie helps thousands of people all over the world get techy with it. She\u2019s been featured in Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Venture Beat, Mashable, Business Insider, Yahoo! Finance, and Under 30 CEO.<\/p>\n

She started making websites when she was 12, but never imagined she\u2019d end up in the digital strategy business. Says Nathalie, \u201cI was blogging online before \u2018blogs\u2019 or WordPress were even on the scene. As soon as WordPress was available I loved it and have built all of my sites on it ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tZachary Skaggs\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t
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Zach is a customer service guru and the ‘Director of Happiness’ at The WP Ninjas. After studying information systems and business in college, Zach went on to work in IT related customer service in production environments including Olin Chemical, Volkswagen, most recently as a as a Technical Support Engineer with Amazon. A relative newcomer to the WordPress world, he draws heavily from his experiences and influences managing support in high stakes production environments and applies those lessons in a universal support methodology to decrease support load, manage support workflows, and maintain customer happiness.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tKathy Drewien\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t
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Best known for\u00a0teaching beginners how to use WordPress<\/a>, (and self-proclaimed WordCamp Queen of Registration for 5 years), Kathy is\u00a0a professionally trained listener skilled in\u00a0helping business owners\u00a0avoid the pain and expense of not knowing what they\u00a0don\u2019t know through her\u00a0coaching and training<\/a>. She is the Executive Producer of Kathy Drewien & Company, a web development firm offering business solutions powered by WordPress and sweet tea.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMickey Mellen\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t
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Mickey is the Technical Director at GreenMellen Media<\/a> and runs the monthly “All Things WordPress” meetup<\/a> in Marietta. He’s been using WordPress for just under a decade, and has helped build hundreds of WordPress-powered sites over the years. You can find him on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, Google+<\/a> or LinkedIn<\/a>, among others.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTom McFarlin\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t
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Tom McFarlin is a self-employed developer who works at Pressware<\/a> where he works with his team to build software and provide services for others.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s worked with companies such as Envato<\/a> serving as editor of Tuts+ Code<\/a>, WordPress.com where he sales WordPress Themes such as Mayer<\/a>, and worked as the technical editor on Smashing WordPress, Fourth Edition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He also maintains a number of free plugins and tools including the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate<\/a>, and he blogs daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s not at his computer, you can usually find him playing music, hanging out with his wife, his two daughters, and his two dogs, running, reading, or catching up on movies or episodes of some of his favorite TV shows.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMelissa Eggleston\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t
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I\u2019m a content strategist and user experience specialist on a mission to connect people through the web. I work for non-profits, businesses, and universities who need user-friendly websites with memorable content. I also consult for website development firms when they have clients who require content or user experience expertise. Sometimes I give talks on how to improve websites<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have experience and training in these areas:<\/p>\n