Keynote Speaker – Chris Lema
No one knows the product landscape in the WordPress ecosystem better than Chris. He’s known for smart, free guidance on his website and blog, as well as his work as an advisor to many WordPress related companies.
WordCamp Atlanta 2019 Speakers
Aaron D. Campbell
Aaron is an international speaker, open source advocate, and outgoing introvert. He’s been a regular contributor to WordPress for more than a decade, and is currently employed by GoDaddy to focus full time on the WordPress open source project. He’s been called both a coffee snob and a beer snob, but considers both to be compliments. When not buried in code, he enjoys spending time with his wife and son, riding his motorcycle, and reading sci-fi/fantasy books. You can find him online at AaronDCampbell.com or on Twitter as @AaronCampbell.
Aaron Reimann
Aaron is a designer turned developer turned agency starter at sideways8.com. He has built sites for companies of all shapes and sizes, ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies, since beginning his work with WordPress in 2008. An organizer for WordCamp Atlanta and the Atlanta WordPress Meetup, Aaron provides leadership and speaks regularly at events throughout the WordPress community. Most recently, Aaron has been serving as the technical lead for 48in48.org, an organization that builds 48 websites for 48 nonprofits in 48 hours at events around the world. You can hear Aaron regularly on his WordPress podcast at wpsquareone.com.
Adam Walker
I’m a husband, father of 5, digital agency co-founder (Sideways8) and nonprofit co-founder (48in48). I’m a digital marketing strategist at heart, though I have a background in design and development as well. I have been working with WordPress since 2005 and started an agency dedicated to custom WordPress design and development in 2010. I love to speak at WordCamps and Meetups and geek out talking about digital marketing strategy.
Alex Sanfilippo
By day I’m an executive in the aerospace industry. However, my passion to help people succeed in life. Whether you’re seeking to achieve more personally or professionally, I’m here to help!
Andrew Norcross
when i was a kid, i saw my older brother and his friends ride their bmx bikes down a hill in our neighborhood. so i took my larger banana-seat bike up the hill and proceeded to ride down. i lost control as i went over a curb, then hit the front of the bike on some broken concrete. i flew over the front of the handle bars and slid chin-first on the sidewalk.
i fractured my jaw and got stitches.
April Wier
April helps individuals and businesses become the best versions of themselves. This may come in the form of a new, or better, web site or coaching to break through self-imposed limitations. She specializes in helping high-performers reach their goals online. She is heavily involved in Atlanta WordPress community, as a co-organizer of the Woodstock WordPress Meetup and as a former organizer for WordCamp Atlanta. For fun, she runs Sugar Five Design, a digital marketing company in Woodstock, GA.
Beth Livingston
Beth built her first WordPress website in 2009 for a side business, was immediately smitten, and soon began building websites for other small businesses. In 2016, after a long history as an IT Business Analyst and Instructional Designer, Beth left the corporate world to become a full time WordPress Coach and Designer, and now owns WP Roadmaps and Coaching, providing project and productivity management education to WordPress practitioners.
Beth also administers the WordPress Project Management Facebook group and serves as an organizer for the Triad WordPress Meetup Group where she has hosted several “happiness bar” type events for those needing help. Beth has spoken at WordCamp Asheville, Venture Cafe Winston-Salem, the Triad WordPress Meetup, and has taught project management classes at GTCC’s Small Business Center in Greensboro NC.
Bobby Kircher
Bobby owns Papaya Internet, an Atlanta-based digital marketing consultancy specializing in search engine optimization and marketing. He is a 20-year web veteran who got his start as in intern while studying Information Science at Florida State University. Today, he helps businesses grow by finding customers online and is an active member of the Atlanta WordPress community.
When he’s not sitting behind a computer, he’s riding his bike, collecting vinyl records, and performing improv around Atlanta.
Brad Morrison
Brad is the organizer of the North Fulton WordPress Meetup and has been working with WordPress since 2009. He’s the founder of GoWP, a WordPress support company that serves agencies and small businesses. When Brad is not sitting in front of a computer, he’s busy following the Tar Heels and spending time with his wife, Marie and daughter, Elena.
Brian Hall
After learning to code, I got my first job building A/B tests at a marketing agency … and just kept doing it. So while the rest of the world is building beautiful sites from the ground up, I spend my days tuning, tweaking, and optimizing them.
Carl Alexander
Heya! I’m Carl.
I’m a PHP developer from Montréal, Canada. I live and breath advanced programming topics (and memes). I share a lot of my passion for those topics on my website where I publish articles on a regular basis.
It’s my way to help you with these hard-to-learn topics. That’s also why I’m excited to speak at WordCamp Atlanta. It’s another way for me to help you.
Besides that, I’ve been a WordPress Montréal organizer since 2010. I also help organize other WordPress events during the year. You can find me on Twitter and GitHub.
Chip Edwards
Chip is the founder of CreateMyVoice.com at SaaS company dedicated to helping content producers engage their audience in a Voice First, Smart Speaker world. Chip has created multiple voice apps for well known bloggers and podcasters including Seth Godin, BiggerPockets, History Unplugged, and The Blind Blogger. Chip is a teacher, speaker, designer, and technologist who is passionate about connecting WordPress content to the new Voice Technology platforms.
Chris LaFay
Web developer since the fifth grade. WordPress junky since college. I own Classic City Consulting (here in Georgia) and run the web development team for BRADLEYWEST out in Austin, TX.
Chris Lema
Chris Lema has been building eCommerce sites since 1997, back when it would take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, and still didn’t work perfectly. Today he’s the VP of Products at Liquid Web, where his team has designed and launched a new platform dedicated to WooCommerce stores.
Chris Wiegman
Chris is an engineer at WP Engine who has been working on WordPress since 2008. Over the years he built one of the largest security plugins on WordPress.org as well as numerous other plugins, themes and solutions for sites large and small. 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.
Christine Laikind
Hey, My name is Christine Laikind. It’s personal for me – why? I was born deaf. I am an entrepreneur. I’m on a mission to talk about web accessibility. To the Web Design community. To small businesses. To nonprofit organizations. To e-commerce businesses. You may or may not have heard about web accessibility. Or Inclusive design. But anyone that has a website, web accessibility is becoming more important than ever. Why? Because, the Web and Internet as a whole is an increasingly important resource in many aspects of our life which includes: education, employment, government, e-commerce, health care, recreation, and so much more. An accessible web will help people with “different abilities” (my term), the aging population (think baby boomers and upcoming generation X) and even those who are “temporarily disabled” use the website – the way it is intended. Let’s talk and discuss on how we can make our digital world so much better for everyone.
Christopher Miles
Chris is a Product Manager for Bluehost in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has done freelance web design and front-end development for over a decade. He discovered WordPress in 2011 and has used it to build sites for clients and non-profits ever since.
Danny Peavey
Danny is the founder and CEO of One Week Website (oneweekwebsite.com) where he helps companies get a website they love and a marketing plan that earns new customers. He is also the CEO of Clarify Your Brand where he provides marketing, messaging, and business coaching to businesses. Danny is also a Certified Storybrand Guide and you can see his profile here.
Dave Braun
Dave loves to work with clients to help their websites be the hub of their marketing wheel! He’s invested years learning the technical aspects of WordPress web design as well as writing copy to help make client’s messages clear and not confusing.
Additionally, Dave helps web developers and others find virtual assistants and helps them be more productive through his programs at HireMyVA.com.
He also partners with Larry Broughton, CEO of broughtonHOTELS on several projects and businesses, including coaching and masterminding and has consulted with hundreds of entrepreneurs these last few years.
Prior to Pro Website Creators, Dave worked at a semiconductor company for almost 30 years, led teams across multiple continents, and holds six patents. He also has co-created several iPhone apps.
Dave enjoys spending time with his wife, working out, attending Mariners Church in Irvine, CA, and is a certified John Maxwell team coach.
He’s married to his amazing wife of 35+ years, Cheryl, who is Chief Program Officer at Irvine Public Schools Foundation.
David Bisset
A full-time PHP and WordPress freelancer for 10+ years, David is now a senior PHP developer at EnviraGalleryLLC working on two popular WordPress plugins (Envira Gallery and Soliloquy) used by hundred of thousands of websites. In addition, he also works on the popular WordPress Post Status newsletter, works as a consultant and developer for various PHP and JavaScript side projects, speaker, coding mentor, contributor to various open source projects, and helps run several meetups in South Florida. For the past decade, he has been an organizer of one of the largest and longest running WordPress conferences – WordCamp Miami. Also known for his live tweeting of conferences and a sense of humor he uses to keep him sane.
When he’s not working you’ll find David enjoying time with his family, debating which Star Trek series is the best, talking to people about tech communities and how they can shape our society for the better, and trying to find new creative ways to use or donate all the tech conference shirts he’s collected over the years.
David Wolfpaw
David is a professional web developer focused on WordPress theme and plugin development. He emphasizes helping small businesses, providing ongoing support, and educating users through his service FixUpFox. He helps organize both WordPress Orlando and WordCamp Orlando.
David Wood
David Wood is a web developer with over 10 years of development experience. He has spent much of his career working with WordPress, writing everything from custom plugins and themes to highly specialized code for unique situations. When he is not working he enjoys reading, gaming, and hiking. He also finds writing about himself in the third person to be a strange experience, one he tries to keep from repeating.
David Zimmerman
David Zimmerman is an internet marketing consultant who specializes in search. He has several years experience working with B2B companies, especially manufacturers. He started his own consultancy, Reliable Acorn LLC, after working in several agencies. David’s core marketing belief is that all marketing should be measured. Measured marketing is more effective and less expensive. There’s no excuse, in David’s mind, for marketing efforts whose results are not measured.
Diane Conklin
Diane Conklin is an internationally known author, entrepreneur, coach, consultant, marketing and business strategist, and speaker. Diane is a direct response marketing expert who specializes in showing business owners how to turn their businesses into money making machines using rapid profit acceleration, leveraged business growth and strategic implementation through Complete Marketing Systems.
As the founder of Complete Marketing Systems, Diane has been involved in numerous campaigns grossing over $1,000,000.00 several times in her career and routinely helps people grow businesses to 6 figures, and beyond.
Diane was voted Glazer-Kennedy Marketer of the Year for her innovative marketing strategies and campaigns and was nominated for Atlanta Business Woman of the Year.
Dwayne McDaniel
Dwayne has been working in tech and open source since 2005.
Once he dipped a tow into the world of Free and Open Source Software, he knew never wanted to work outside of it again. Dwayne first started building in Drupal and WordPress for the San Francisco Improv community in 2013, which lead him to his current role. As a Developer Advocate at Pantheon he has had the privilege of presenting at dozens of community events from Paris to Iceland and from MIT and Stanford.
Reach out at mcdwayne.com or on twitter @mcdwayne
Francesca Marano
Francesca is the WordPress Community Manager at SiteGround, web hosting company. She is part of the WordPress community team, organizing meetups and WordCamps in Torino and taking part in many other WordPress events worldwide.
She founded C+B, a blog with an editorial staff of more than sixty authors offering daily advice for Italian female creative entrepreneurs.
Francesca is a passionate speaker and you can find her in Italy and around the world talking about WordPress, community, open source, women in tech, and small businesses.
Frank Corso
Frank has been working with WordPress since 2009 and is the founder of WP Health, a simple WordPress monitor. He is the organizer of Gainesville’s Digital Marketing Meetup, WordPress Meetup, and PHP Meetup. In his spare time, he also teaches web development both as an adjunct professor at the University of Florida and at IT.Pro TV.
Above all else, he enjoys spending time with daughter.
Follow him on Twitter or Instagram: @fpcorso
Frank Jones
Frank is the host of the WordPress Help Desk in RTP, organizer of the Raleigh SEO Meetup, founding member of the Triangle Wikipedians user group, and Marketing Director at OptSus Marketing. He has been building websites since 1995 and started using WordPress in 2008. The Learn-Do-Teach ethos and open knowledge are central to his work.
Gary Kovar
A native Floridian, Gary is a backend developer at Modern Tribe. After attending his first WordCamp in 2015, he cleaned up a few of his own plugins and put them in the WordPress repository. Often dabbling in a side project to satisfy his own curiosity, Gary can be found attending and sometimes speaking at Florida WordCamps. He is also one of three hosts of the free-style podcast, Binary Jazz.
When he’s not in front of his computer, Gary is playing with his kids or trying to learn a new obscure stringed instrument.
Gayle Williams
Gayle Williams, owner of Vision Marketing in Sarasota, FL, has spent the majority of her career as a marketing professional directing marketing operations for not-for-profits and small businesses. Gayle moved over to agency account management in 2002 and founded her own agency in 2008. From directing strategy and client relations she moved into hands-on design and development—growing in the opposite direction than most designers has had its strategic advantages. Today she runs a thriving digital marketing and WordPress design business from her home office, and enjoys the work-family balance it provides.
Gayle was an early inbound marketing adopter as a Hubspot partner agency and maintains her Inbound Marketing certification. She is also a WP Elevation-certified Digital Business Consultant. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a Masters in Adult Learning and Development.
I am a professional music critic and classical flutist, but enjoy many other creative and expressive activities from cooking and knitting to Argentine tango.
Gina Deaton
Gina is a WordPress guru based in the Atlanta area. She has built websites for companies of all shapes and sizes, working on all areas ranging from content and strategy to project management and ongoing support. Previously located in Boston, she spoke at WordCamp and also wrote an article for athemes.com based on her talk. She works for Sideways 8 Interactive, a WordPress shop in Atlanta.
Graham Tucker
I am a theme developer working in house for a training team in north Atlanta. I work a lot with front end content but love programming and am on my way through the plugin developer handbook. I also design here and there. Lately I’ve been learning the ropes with WooCommerce and the Storefront theme.
Harry Hayes
Harry Hayes has been creating TV commercials and video content for over 30 years. As owner and chief content creator at Content Puppy, he creates video content for brands, businesses and nonprofit organizations.
He specializes in creating video for websites, including homepage videos, explainer videos, blog posts and product demonstrations.
Jason McCullough
Digital Marketing Strategist, WordPress Developer, Videographer, Photographer and Freelancers Union Organizer
Jenny Munn
Jenny Munn is a Digital Marketer specializing in Search Engine Marketing (SEM/SEO). She works in the Education market and helps organizations amplify their brand visibility and generate more awareness, traffic, and conversions. Jenny is passionate about her field, and is a frequent speaker on SEO and website marketing. She has taught SEO at WordCamps around the country, EdNET, NAIS, PRSA, Digital Atlanta, Business Marketing Association, Atlanta Tech Village, and various digital marketing organizations. Find out more at https://jennymunn.com/.
Jill Anderson
Jill Anderson is a web designer/developer who partners with creative professionals on their websites, and their client’s sites. She is passionate about crafting beautiful and innovative WordPress websites focused on clear positioning and positive user experiences.
Jonathan Desrosiers
Jonathan has been using WordPress since 2007 to build sites of all sizes, covering the entire spectrum of local businesses to enterprises and large universities. He has been a contributor to WordPress Core since 2013, and is a WordCamp Boston/monthly Boston WordPress Meetup organizer. He currently works as a WordPress Developer at Bluehost, where a majority of his time is spent contributing to WordPress Core.
Joseph LoPreste
I am father of 2 girls. I have been in the tech industry for the last 10 years and I have owned a restaurant for the last 12 years. I’m born and raised in Florida.
Josepha Haden Chomphosy
Josepha has been organizing and promoting events across the US since 2010. In 2015, she joined Automattic where she helps guide the WordPress project’s future and support the ongoing health of the world’s largest volunteer open source community. She was recently named the Executive Director as leadership grows and matures.
Julie Anderson
After years of working in retail, education, insurance, sales and even as a website consultant, I decided what I really like to do is managing projects, monitoring all the moving parts and seeing the project over the finish line. I am currently the Lead Project Manager at Sideways8 where I am also known as the team mom.
Kathy Drewien
In short, I do work that matters for people who care. I show up regularly, consistently, and generously to lead, organize, and build confidence to change the world.
I own a rescue shelter for abandoned, ugly, broken, outdated, and non-productive websites. Under that roof my team builds new sites, repairs broken ones, provides ongoing care, and I coach, teach, counsel, guide, and nurture the site owners.
Using the skills honed over a lifetime of self-employment spanning 3 different careers—family therapy, real estate brokerage, and web development—I coach creative professionals to move beyond limitations and become a thriving professional.
I volunteer as an organizer for WordCamp Atlanta and WordCamp US. My volunteer role also includes mentoring WordCamp organizers in nationwide locations and facilitating the Marietta WordPress Meetup.
Kerry Wolfe
Kerry is the owner of WPWolfePress.com, a WordPress Design and Development Shop that focuses on crafting websites that focus on providing a remarkable, personalized customer experience.
He has been developing websites and contributing to online ventures both public and private for 23 years. He discovered and fell in love with WordPress in 2012. He has ridden the wave of the dot-com boom of the late nineties and survived the dot-com bomb of the early 2000s. As an Entrepreneur, he knows what it takes to flourish and sometimes, what it takes to survive. And he is passionate about sharing what he has learned, and continues to learn, with his customers and the WordPress community.
He is a member of the WordPress Gwinnett Meetup.
Laura Strader
Laura is a UX Designer by trade and a wordsmith at heart. She loves color and collects art markers obsessively. She fights the good fight (death to lorem ipsum!!) and supports content-first design. She started her career as a technical writer but moved to UX writing, because what good are technical instructions if no one understands them? Laura is a strong advocate of designing for the user by finding harmony between design and the microcopy that gives it purpose.
Maryann Davidson
Maryann’s bucket list is currently 7 pages long, and growing. She has walked through an operating car wash. Her ringtone is the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. She was born the oldest but raised the youngest. The first photograph she sold was to a newspaper, in 1992. Her first camera was the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, which she still has. She lives by 2 mottos: Passion Fuels Purpose and Carpe Diem. You can find Maryann at www.MaryannDavidson.com or contact her directly at photos@MaryannDavidson.com
Melanie G Adcock
Melanie G Adcock has been designing websites since the late 90’s. In May of 2010 Melanie became a full-time freelance Web Designer / Developer. She has been using WordPress exclusively since 2011. Her current clients include several small businesses, continuing care retirement communities, churches, and other non-profit organizations. Melanie and her husband Jay run Adcock Creative Group, a full-service agency in Newnan, Georgia
Micah Wood
Micah Wood is a WordPress Developer at Bluehost. 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.
Michelle Schulp
Michelle is an independent graphic designer and frontend developer in Minneapolis. Prior to beginning her career, she studied Visual Communications, with minors in Psychology and Sociology. As her work progressed, she also branched into front-end development and user experience design to round our her skillset. This combination of disciplines led her to adopt a strategy-based approach to design, focused on solving tangible problems and achieving real goals based on how people think.
She loves the open source community, and when she is not working on projects she speaks/volunteers/organizes at events and workshops around the country. Her passions are communication and empowerment, and she believes in the power of “Why?”
Mickey Mellen
As a founder and partner of GreenMellen Media, Mickey is regarded as the token “tech guy” and his insights are greatly valued on the GreenMellen team. With over 15 years of WordPress experience and a passion for helping others, you will often find Mickey leading a North Atlanta-based MeetUp, A Brighter Web.
Mickey Trivett
Mickey owns and operates WebCoUSA Enterprises which is an Award Winning Marketing, Consulting, and Web Design Agency located in Johnson City, Tennessee. He started his company 15 years ago in the oldest town in Tennessee which is Jonesborough.
He is also the Chief Happiness Officer for KnownHost which is a premium managed hosting services provider based out of Birmingham, Alabama and attends WordCamps all over the USA.
Believe it or not, he is self-taught and the very first website he sold was at a local Flea Market of all places. He has now grown from that one website to having hundreds of clients in over 41 States. He often says that he loves waking up in the morning knowing that he has a career that he chose and at the same time he gets to help people with their businesses.
Naomi C. Bush
Naomi’s been working with WordPress as a professional developer since 2005, and you can currently find her over at https://gravityplus.pro where she specializes in using WordPress form builders to quickly deliver custom business functionality at a fraction of the cost.
She contributes back to the WordPress project through the core code, documentation, free plugins, organizing the WordPress Gwinnett developer meetup, organizing WordCamp Atlanta, and speaking at WordCamps.
Nathan Ingram
Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress and freelance business development topics via live webinar.
He is also the creator of >ADVANCE Coaching, working with WordPress business owners individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their businesses.
Nathan has been a freelance web developer since 1995, and is based in Birmingham, Alabama where he is an organizer for WordCamp Birmingham.
You can learn more about Nathan at https://nathaningram.com.
Pam Edwards
Pam is the researcher and marketing director for Create My Voice, a Smart Speaker service company she started with her partner, Chip, in 2018. She has homeschooled her two sons, loves woodworking, and her dogs. By working in the Voice Interface world, she gets to meet people who live in an audio world.
Rahul Nagare
Rahul has been working in the web hosting industry since 2005 and started using WordPress in 2008. Since then he has helped scale web and cloud infrastructure for companies like General Mills, Saks, CSX, and PetSmart. Rahul is now the co-founder and CEO at ScaleDynamix, where he manages 12,000+ WordPress and WooCommerce sites.
Rich Tabor
As a WordPress entrepreneur, designer and developer all wrapped up in one, Rich is recognized as one of the top leaders in this post-Gutenberg era of WordPress. His ever-precise design chops have topped the 2018 Automattic Design Awards and led him to found ThemeBeans, a premier WordPress theme shop and ThatPluginCompany, a top-notch Gutenberg-first development shop.
Ronnie Burt
Ronnie is the Chief Business Officer at Incsub, the company behind WPMU DEV, CampusPress, and Edublogs. He’s a former educator, a math nerd, and a wannabe musician.
Tom McCracken
Tom McCracken is a 20+ year web industry veteran. He has a blended background ranging across web development, UX, marketing, content strategy, data analysis, and agile project management. His passion is helping organizations leverage technology to drive business impact.
Tom has consulted on over 100 interactive projects for organizations such as AT&T, U.S. Bank Corp, Simon & Schuster, IBM, Miami Dolphins, NEC, McDonald’s, SMU, Abbott Labs, Pratt & Whitney, ADP, E*TRADE, Nationwide Insurance, and Tektronics.
An avid open source contributor, he has built more than two dozen Drupal modules and WordPress plugins. Today, his core focus is developing results-oriented, data-driven tools to enable teams to deliver decisively better web experiences and ROI.
Tom McFarlin
I’m a self-employed developer running Pressware. For eight-years, I’ve built custom solutions for others using WordPress. I’ve participated in my local meetup group, numerous podcasts, and have been blogging regularly since 2010.
Tom Tortorici
Tom Tortorici is a strategic copywriter who started out as a designer, and has taught classes in both. By putting on his buyer’s hat while working on sellers’ websites, he’s learned that good design alone isn’t enough to make a business website successful. And he tends to think way too much about the sweet spot where good content and good design overlap. Find out more about Tom at https://www.tomtortorici.com
Tricia Clements
Tricia has been involved in the WordPress community since attending her first WordCamp Atlanta in 2012. After a few years of tinkering around with it on personal websites, she launched her business site in 2015, MuttButs.com.
Tricia focuses on content and loves finding out all that WordPress has to offer to help her business and make things run smoother and easier. As a social media manager, she creates and manages social media content, writes blogs and manages her clients Google My Business (GMB) accounts.
She specializes in pet businesses because of her love for her two rescue dogs, Riedi and Margi. They are often seen (and heard!) on her videos, live streams and blog.
Victor Ramirez
Victor Ramirez began his foray into the interwebs building websites and email newsletters for various high school art projects. He is currently a lead software engineer at Dow Jones and owns AbstractWP – a WordPress focused marketing agency. In his free time, he teaches high school students to code & coaches professionals in New York City.
Windy Pierre
I’m a studious and dedicated eCommerce and Digital Marketing Professional.