Adam Stogdill
Adam’s passion for computers began when he was just eight years old. It began when he was literally shaken awake by his father in excitement some twenty years ago. Since then, Adam has taken that passion and integrated it into everything he touches. Adam began programming when he was 10 years old. Since then, he’s worked on everything from large enterprise applications to exciting new start ups! He loves pushing the envelope on what can be done and believes strongly that anything is possible. He found WordPress when it was in its early days and it has been a romantic connection ever since. When he isn’t soaking up new technologies like a sponge, he spends his time enjoying music and the company of his fiancé and their dogs. Adam is a lover of sharks, dinosaurs and programming. He’s your new best friend, role model and super hero all rolled into one. Eat your vitamins kids!
AJ Morris
AJ Morris is an avid developer in the WordPress community. Working for a theme company and a software development company building and maintaining websites built on WordPress is just what he does. He loves to get his knees and elbows deep in code, but doesn’t have a problem doing marketing or sales related tasks. He’s been involved with WordPress in one way or another since 2006, having built and deployed over 100 sites in the last 2 years alone. When he isn’t working in WordPress, you can find him blogging abut WordPress over at, http://ajmorris.me, his personal blog, or out chasing his girlfriend around on never-ending adventures across the state.
Andy Makar
Dr. Andrew Makar is an enthusiastic leader who helps organizations navigate technology challenges with tactical project management. In addition to his day job as an IT manager, he is an author, active blogger, and lecturer on a range of project management topics with an emphasis on collaboration using Web 2.0 tools. He is also an active freelance writer for technology and project management blogs. When he isn’t working, writing, or teaching, he’s found playing with his kids and learning the occasional card trick or two.
Check out his WordCamp slides on the Smart Blogging Tools for Smart Business presentation
Anthony Montalbano
Anthony is an avid WordPress user and developer since 2006. He’s also a huge advocate for open source software. He’s been developing for the web for over 10 years and was recently on the development team that build dominos.com, the online pizza ordering system. Anthony co-founded a startup calendering service, flipfrog.com. He currently works for AMBR Detroit developing mobile and desktop web apps, as well as custom WordPress solutions. He’s written a handful of WordPress plugins, spoken numerous times on WordPress, and blogged just as much about the platform. He’s also responsible for helping lead the WordCamp Detroit event.
Brad Parbs
I’m Brad Parbs. I’ve been using WordPress for a few years, and I love it. I do custom themes and custom plugin development. I currently have 4 plugins on WordPress.org, with more on the way. WordPress is my passion, and it’s awesome.
Curtiss Grymala
Curtiss Grymala, the founder of Ten-321 Enterprises, is the University Webmaster at the University of Mary Washington. Prior to starting that position in November 2010, he worked as the Webmaster at Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown, Va. for nearly four years. As the Webmaster at Lord Fairfax Community College (LFCC), he was responsible for maintaining websites for the College, the LFCC Foundation and the LFCC Office of Workforce Solutions, as well as the College intranet. Grymala managed and led the process of redeveloping the College website. At the University of Mary Washington, Grymala was responsible for working with the external vendor in charge of the site design, and manages all custom development for the University’s unique implementation of WordPress as its new CMS. Over the last three years, Grymala has developed more than 50 custom WordPress plugins, released nine public WordPress plugins and created more than 15 custom WordPress themes for various organizations and companies.
Dave Askins
Dave Askins is editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, an online-only newspaper dedicated to local government and civic affairs coverage for the Ann Arbor, Mich. community. The Chronicle has used the WordPress platform since its launch in September 2008. Askins’ experience in web publishing dates to 2005, when he started a website called Teeter Talk, a series of transcribed interviews recorded while riding a teeter totter in his backyard. Askins went to school first to become a mathematician and later a linguist, but was distracted from those paths.
David Tufts
David Tufts works full time as the web producer for a large international non-profit, RBC Ministries, and is a Co-founder at Rocketwood, a web development agency. He is an ambitious developer who is always looking for creative ways to implement the tools at hand in new and interesting ways. Over the last 4 years he has enjoyed deploying dozens of sites using WordPress ranging from personal blogs to large scale corporate websites. David’s latest WordPress project has been to develop an API for WordPress which can be found at kickpress.org.
David Veldt
I am a digital marketer specializing in SEO, PPC and social media and the former owner of Studio 812, Inc. based in Grand Rapids, MI, which designed, developed and marketed websites for Michigan-based small businesses. I have since managed successful organic search campaigns for over a dozen national and global brands, including Fortune 500 companies. My current role is as online media specialist for Bevelwise Media, also based in Grand Rapids, MI, where I manage organic and pay-per-click campaigns for numerous companies of varying industries and sizes. Bevelwise builds and optimizes numerous WordPress sites a year and I have personally designed and launched a number of WordPress-based projects, including my current personal project, Strike; an online baseball academy and community with BuddyPress and bbPress integration.
Gloria Antonelli
Gloria Antonelli is a WordPress consultant, instructor and developer since 2006. She rolls her experience as an educator and emerging technology consultant into a holistic approach of web development. Gloria has been learning, teaching and presenting about the web since 1996. Her expertise spans many disciplines including User Experience, Information Architecture, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Standard Development, CSS, Content Creation and WordPress. Gloria’s clients include advertizing agencies, major university, corporations and startups. She has been presenting for over 8 years at local and national conferences and workshops. Happiness for Gloria includes stacks of the latest technology books, online research and 3 day tech conferences. Find her on twitter @GloriaAntonelli.
Hubert Sawyers III
Hubert is the head of digital marketing strategy and chief WordPress advocate at Montgomery Advertising. Since 2009, Hubert has been breaking, tweaking and repairing WordPress sites. Fortunately, most of these sites are his own. He currently manages over 40 WordPress sites for his friends, family and paid clients.
Websites are just awesome platforms to Hubert, his real strong suit is content marketing. When Hubert is not trying to perfect personalized communications online, you can find him working on his BBQ recipes or reviewing the latest hip tunes.
Jorge Castro
Jorge O. Castro currently works on the Community Team as Cloud Community Liaison for Canonical Ltd, sponsors of the Ubuntu project. He works on helping people and projects manage and deploy their services in the cloud at scale. You can follow along in his adventures at http://www.jorgecastro.org
Lara Galloway
As the Mom Biz Coach, Lara helps mom entrepreneurs manage successful businesses while successfully managing their families. She’s a wife, a mom to three school-age kids, and runs two businesses.
Lara coaches and mentors women business owners to create business plans, engagement marketing strategies, powerful pitches and product funnels along with well-crafted websites, blogs and Social Media profiles that attract their ideal clients. She help clients create successful businesses that complement their lifestyles without compromising their family commitments.
Often featured as a go-to resource for women in business by Forbes, Crain’s, and the Chicago Tribune, Lara offers private coaching programs as well as group coaching via the MomBizAcademy.com. She’s also the co-founder of MomBiz.com and the Mom Biz Retreat, a weekend mompreneur getaway for women business owners who need to work ON their businesses, not in it. Find out more about the Mom Biz Retreats in Denver, Chicago and Toronto at www.MomBizRetreat.com.
Tim Yow
Tim Yow began a successful career as a freelance designer, back in 2004, but client demand quickly steered him away from pixel manipulation into the world of Search Engine Optimization. Somewhere along the line, SEO became more than a career, it became his passion. He has worked as an SEO consultant and trainer, including managing a consulting team at a large domain registrar and hosting provider. Over the past few years, however, he has shifted his focus towards managing the online marketing campaigns for small business owners in various industries, from major health insurance sites to small online stores for handcrafted jewelry.
This year, he opened YowSeo Online Marketing to provide custom marketing strategies for startups and small businesses with a focus on SEO, but also offering Social Media Marketing, Local Search Marketing, Copywriting, Web Analytics Consulting and Pay-Per-Click Advertising Management.