Tiffany Kuchta
Tiffany is lead developer at Quandarymat, a web development shop. She doesn’t like the term full stack developer, but thinks she might be one. She has been building web applications since they were called “web pages” (1999). These days the bulk of her work is eCommerce applications and project stabilization. A woman who codes, Tiffany is passionate about inclusion in tech, solving problems with code, building things out of other things, empathy always, and sassy tee shirts usually.
Corey Freeman
Corey Freeman has been building websites for clients since she was 14 years old. Her passion for small businesses began with helping her mother with her company’s website. Now, Corey is dedicated to helping professionals and businesses build an incredible online presence.
Lauren Jeffcoat
Lauren has been building WordPress websites for almost a decade and is currently part of the OnTheGoSystems WPML Customer Support team. She enjoys creating WordPress websites and has worn many hats in the world of web development including Project Manager, Customer Service Representative, Account Strategist, and Web Designer.
Originally from New England, she now lives in Surfside Beach, South Carolina. Lauren enjoys sharing her knowledge along with tips and tricks that she has learned either through furthering her education or personal experience.
Lauren is the organizer of WordPress Meetup Myrtle Beach, a co-organizer of WordCamp Wilmington, a WordCamp Speaker and a lover of all things WordPress.
Steve Mortiboy
Steve is the COO and Service Delivery Manager for Semper Fi Web Design. He leads the team that develops plugins such as All in One SEO Pack. He has been working with WordPress for over 6 years and devotes much of his time to helping people get the most from WordPress. He is also one of the organizers of WordCamp Raleigh and the Raleigh WordPress Meetup Group. When not hard at work he’s working on DIY projects at home or off traveling.
Derek Schmidt
Born and raised right here in Southeastern North Carolina, Derek has worked with Adobe software for over 10 years. What started as a hobby and a ‘Do It Yourself’ attitude eventually became a career passion. Derek has worked with International multi-million dollar companies to help market their business and increase their digital presence. While Derek knows all the ins and outs of programming and post-launch marketing, he also understands that these individual tools are only as useful as the marketing strategy that guides them.
Peter La Fond
Peter La Fond is the Founder and CEO of My Internet Scout, LLC, a digital marketing firm serving businesses of all sizes in locations across the country.
Peter graduated from California State University, Sacramento in 1994. Peter’s high technology career has spanned across two decades in Silicon Valley. He’s worked for various sized high technology firms, ranging from start-up to Fortune 500. Peter has employed the WordPress engine as the exclusive platform for the websites his firm develops. In addition, Peter is the Founder of the San Jose WordPress Meetup.
In 2015, Peter moved to Wilmington from Silicon Valley. Although his Silicon Valley roots run deep, he loves Wilmington. Peter, his wife, and his two dogs are happy to call Wilmington home.
Ashley Thorpe
I am a freelance graphic designer / web designer. I spend most of my working time focusing on website design while the other time is spent on everything from vector illustrations to infographic design. I currently use WordPress in two different ways. I design wire frames and mockups in Photoshop and then hand them off to a developer for programming into a custom built template or I buy a theme and do the rest myself!</
Helen Rittersporn
Helen Rittersporn, PMP, uses her project management skills to juggle blogging daily while working full-time. Helen Rittersporn launched AnchoredScraps.com February 26, 2015 to encourage others to regularly carve out time to connect with others via “old” styles of correspondence, such as handwriting notes and sending cards to friends and family. She suggests people invest 15 minutes per week to enhance their emotional and spiritual sides of their lives. Helen holds PMI’s Project Management professional (PMP) ® certification credential through the Project Management Institute (PMI). She blogs daily at her site, AnchoredScraps.com, on topics mostly related to old-fashioned correspondence, scrapbooking, personal organization and other life interests and observations.
Adam Sewell
Adam Sewell is a father, husband, and entrepreneur. Most of his time is spent with his IT support company, MyGeek Technologies. Though he is also known to develop WordPress sites and plugins as well as providing high performance hosting specific to WordPress. The most recent WordPress plugin is Simple Desk, a ticketing system aimed at service based businesses. You can find it on GitHub.
Elizabeth Pampalone
Elizabeth Pampalone started her Computer company in 2006. After finishing a Web Programming Degree at the University of Cincinnati, she ended up in Jacksonville. Here she found her passion and a town that needed what she had to offer. Her small computer company grew and then she opened a Web Design Firm. After that she branched out and started NetworkInJax.com. In 2014, she was named “Queen of Jacksonville Networking” by the Jacksonville Business Journal. This led to DoINeedABusinessPlan.com and several other ventures. She is an active member of SCORE. She has taught classes and given lectures to the students of UNF. When she is not pursuing her career, she is out ballroom dancing or sharing a relaxing evening with her husband. They were married in December of 2011 and Elizabeth couldn’t be happier!
Rich Owings
| An Internet marketer since 2005, Rich Owings sold his tech blog in 2014 and now spends his time helping businesses improve their online presence. Rich is co-organizer of WordCamp Asheville and the WordPress Asheville MeetUp group. In his spare time he likes to mountain bike, hike, garden and listen to music. |
Shelly Peacock
Shelly Peacock, @Spinbird, has been in sales and graphic design since 2001, moving focus to include Social Media Management in 2007. She built her first WordPress site in 2009- as a way to make her designs “do stuff”, and as a portfolio for her art business. Shucked it all to run The SpinBird Group, a WordPress consulting and design business. She likes short walks on the beach, cabanas, and shooting opossums off her back deck with her shotgun. Mantra: Life is short- GET #FIERCE WITH IT.
Aaron Alexander
I’m the Owner and Lead Developer of a development company here in Wilmington that’s currently going through a reorganization from Just Code LLC to Peloton Development Company. I’ve mostly worked as a contractor for marketing and creative agencies over the years building websites and applications. The majority of my work over the last six years has been in the employment/recruitment space using various APIs to connect the right job seekers with the right employers. Our team currently does a lot of WordPress development for commercial real estate companies and have dabbled in plugin development for internal use only.
Peter Baylies
<Peter has always been a programmer, a childhood hobby led to a career that he is absolutely enjoying. He graduated from NC State University with a Computer Science degree, and worked as a web developer using PHP and MySQL until he found WordPress and fell in love with it. Peter works primarily on WordPress development at Rivers Agency.
Stephen Jones
I currently work at Tayloe Gray as a primarily full stack developer. I focusing on custom application development, and WordPress VIP, with heavy emphasis on JavaScript and JavaScript libraries (AngularJS, NodeJS, Express). Additionally I develop for iOS and tvOS using the Swift language. I have worked professionally as a designer and/or developer for web-based applications for over 15 years, spending time in several successful local agencies, building applications and websites for all sizes of regional, national, and international businesses. All that said, I have an extremely humble approach to development and consider myself a lifelong student and thrive in team environments where I can learn from others. I believe in open-source codebases and most of my learning is from working with and watching others and checking out their code.
Sharon Dawson
| Sharon Dawson is a Marketing Communications Manager at TheeDesign. She plans and executes marketing campaigns to help small, local, and national companies get more customers and strengthen their branding. That strategy includes social media management, SEO, and writing strong copy for their websites. She keeps her client’s WordPress sites up to date with the latest version and plugins and not breaking that website when doing said updates. Prior to TheeDesign, Sharon was the Webmaster at Burt’s Bees where she managed the b2b and b2c websites for the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. |
Jason Narciso
Jason has over 12 years of development experience focusing on front-end development, e-commerce, email marketing and CMS technologies. After a full life working in Rhode Island and Massachusetts for all sized agencies, freelancing, then owning his own web development shop, Jason has landed in Wilmington where he is a Web Developer at Wilmington Design Company
Andrew Gray
A skilled programmer, technologist and serial entrepreneur, Andrew Gray has been building web applications and dynamic websites for nearly two decades. As CTO of Tayloe Gray, a digital marketing firm, he has been using WordPress as a CMS for since version 2.5, building sites and applications for Banks, Power and Software Companies, and a wide range of enterprise and SMB clients. His team also manages a site on the WordPress VIP platform that receives over 15 million page views per month.</
Brian Reed
Brian is Software Developer from Virginia Beach, VA. He built his first public website in 1996 in high school. After serving in the U.S. Army he found software development in 2004. He currently works for 80|20 Software Consulting with large and small clients focusing on Angular .Net and WordPress. He speaks at his local Advanced WordPress Meetup group which he also co-organizes.</
Kyle Laverty
Hey yinz! I am Kyle Laverty, founder of Laverty Creative, a small one-man-show of a web design company in Apex, NC. I am the one man, and I design and develop effective, brand powering WordPress websites. I am self taught, and have been honing my skills as a web designer and developer since 2012. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, I am also a veteran of the United States Air Force where I served as an Aircraft Mechanic (on F-16’s and F-15’s) for 4 years. When I’m not developing websites I enjoy constantly learning more about web design and development, and spending time with my family. I live with my fiancé and our children of which she has 3 (future stepchildren of mine) and we have 2 together, as well as our 2 dogs. I am also currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at Penn State World Campus (Only 2 semesters left!).</
Ty Downing
Ty is the CEO of SISDigital, a full-service digital advertising agency. He has been recognized as a thought leader and influencer by several corporations and notables in his field. Ty has spoken and presented both nationally, and internationally on a variety of topics from search to social business strategies with proven and positive ROI. Clients include: ARAMARK, DuPont, Concur, Springer Global Publishing, New Hanover Regional Medical Center, St. James Plantation.
Harry Jackson
| Currently a member of the Advanced Product Support team at BoldGrid, Harry helps optimize and manage servers and websites for customers. Harry has been using WordPress for a little over 10 years now, and is currently the resident WordPress expert of his team. He absolutely love sharing his ideas and recipes for success when using WordPress.org, and personally feels the more you know about the server platform you use, the better you can prepare yourself for a successful, scaleable website that will not buckle under the pressure traffic spikes can present. |
Kevin Dees
Howdy, I’m Kevin Dees. I’m the founder of Robojuice. It is a web strategy company focused on delivering a refined experience to partners. I’m also the creator of TypeRocket for WordPress. TypeRocket was created to help developers as designers of WordPress sites build beautiful custom sites with less code. I have been blogging since 2009 on various sites. I was a host of the SitePoint podcast for their last year on air from episode 140 – 192. I was also the cohost of the Web Weekly podcast which started in July 2010 and aired close to 100 episodes.</
Ray Mitchell
Ray is the owner of SixFour Web Design & Marketing, which focuses on meeting the unique marketing needs of small businesses and non-profit organizations. Active in the local community, Ray is a member of and sits on the board of several community non-profit organizations.
Brian Rotsztein
With two decades of experience, Brian carefully balances his positions as an entrepreneur, author, web designer, Internet marketing expert, consultant, photographer, trainer, and startup founder. His recent book, Content Marketing Ideas, is an essential guide to the latest tactics in online marketing. It has been highly praised by critics, including five star ratings on Amazon in the US, Canada, and the UK. He’s the head of well-established brands including Uniseo, a boutique SEO, social media, web development, and Internet marketing company, and Redstone Online Communications, a custom web design and online marketing agency, where he brings a hype-free, seasoned approach to working with clients. He is also the editor of Citynet Magazine, a Montreal-based lifestyle, trends, and food blog. He is a frequent guest on CTV News and various radio shows and podcasts, as a knowledgeable expert. He writes about content marketing, SEO, social media, business, and entrepreneurship, among other topics. His work has been used by ABC News, Social Media Today, USA Today, Search Engine Journal, and other prominent sources. He’s a Senior Editor at The WP Crowd and President of the Canadian Internet Marketing Association. Brian holds two Master’s degrees, has taught university courses, and provides training services on Internet marketing. He’s been using WordPress since 2005 (version 1.6!) Connect with him on Twitter (@brianrotsztein) and Instagram (@brianrotsztein).
Justin Sternberg
I am a lead developer/partner at Zao, lead developer for CMB2, WordPress core contributor, resident of Southport NC, husband, and father of 3
Vasyl Martyniuk
Vasyl is senior software architect and founder of VasylTech and CodePinch. He oversees software development processes, implements best practices and coding standards to ensure the highest efficiency and quality. He has extensive experience in the programming field for a variety of businesses including insurance, education, banking, telecommunication and creative studios. His focus, discipline and strong passion for perfection have been tested and proven dozens of times for last 15 years.
Some Ideas To Help You Get Started:
First off, if you haven’t yet go watch some videos of past talks on WordPress.tv. Notice how the talks are given by knowledge people without self-promotion.
Recent feedback and polls have allowed us to share some possible topics that might help you guide your consideration. Here are some suggestions for topics:
– Content Creation (Writing, Strategy)
– Journalism / Podcasting Topics
– Security
– Building Themes
– Freelancing / Business Topics (Dealing w/ Clients, Best Practices, Hiring Developers, etc.)
– Web Design / Theme Design / UI / UX
– Learning About PHP Not Directly Related To WordPress (PHP 7, etc.)
– Advanced WordPress Development Topics (Coding Themes, Plugins)
– Case Studies (“What We Did Wrong”)
– E-Commerce Topics (Building E-Commerce w/ WordPress)
A few things to keep in mind about presenting at WordCamp Wilmington:
- We look for speakers that are experienced BUT we also look for young or new speakers as well.
- Being a professional speaker is NOT required HOWEVER you must know what you are talking about. In your speaker submission, let us know how your talk can relate to WordPress or the WordCamp Wilmington audience.
- Your session is not primarily to promote your own theme, plugin or business. If your session is to detail how you used WordPress code to build some really great aspect of your theme, plugin or business, and you’d like to present that as a sort of case study, go ahead and submit your session, but know that we’re not going to allow for a sales pitch at any point.
- You have to know how to spell WordPress. And respect the WordPress logo/trademarks.
- You can submit multiple speaker submissions for different talks.
- Please be prepared to submit speaker slides or review your presentation with a WCILM organizer PRIOR to the event if asked.
Talk Lengths:
The length of talks and sessions will be released soon. You should anticipate on at least 25 minutes and at most 1 hour. Once chosen this will be the TOTAL time for your talk including your presentation and Q & A time. Upon acceptance you will be notified of the tracks and lengths of each individual session. We may also incorporate “lightning talks” in between sessions which are short, fast-paced talks on a topic.
Selection Process:
All selections and submissions are collectively reviewed by our committee. We cannot accept all submissions, and in fact the majority are NOT selected. Factors we look for in presentations are the degree of uniqueness and popularity of the topic, the speaker qualifications and experience (past speaking experience is NOT required though), hometown of speaker (we try to keep a certain percentage of speakers local), and other factors. If your submission is not accepted we will notify you although we might not be able to personally respond to each submission or applicant.
Finally, there’s been a lot of talk about variety of speakers at technology conferences. Our general policy is that we don’t consider the race, sex, religion, or any other factor of the speaker to play a part in our selection process. That being said we encourage women and people of color to submit session proposals. EVERYONE has a story and you can reach out to us privately at wilmington@wordcamp.org if you have any questions – please consider submitting a proposal!