Organizers

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 two dogs are happy to call Wilmington home.

Derek Schmidt considers himself a native to the Wilmington area. Shortly after 2 Derek’s family relocated to the area and he has not left since. Derek owns DesignLoud, a web design company in Wilmington, NC primarily working in custom and open source WordPress themes and plugins. Derek has a wife and 3 children and in his off time is known to play guitar, surf and read up on technology.

Jeanne Casper is WordPress web design freelancer and contractor. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art, Jeanne began her digital design journey in graduate school, earning a master’s degree in Multimedia. From there she moved onto web design, web based software design, and for 10 years taught web design, animation, and graphic design software applications.

Currently she spends her time working in WordPress, helping small business owners, non-profits and individuals build online presence, and learn how to manage their websites.

Born and raised in Boston, MA she made her way to Wilmington, NC after a 7 year stint in Silicon Valley. She spends much of her free time enjoying the beach with her husband and two children.

Elena Trofimchuk is a multi-disciplinary designer specializing in UX/web design as well as authentic graphic design and art. She was born and raised in Ukraine and happy to call Wilmington, NC her home since 2016.

Elena is a founder of Web Design Center, LLC and Wilmington Code Academy.

She holds a B.S. in Computer Science and four years of Fine Arts education with focus on “smart” designs and managing development projects. She works hard to give back to the community by providing high quality coding education for local kids, branding support for small and medium businesses and creating high paying jobs in tech field.

Helen Rittersporn, PMP, Project Manager on assignment at a Fortune 500 company. She holds PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP) ® certification credential through the Project Management Institute (PMI). She blogs daily at her website, AnchoredScraps.com, encouraging old-style correspondence letter writing. Helen uses her project management skills to juggle blogging daily while working full-time.

Lauren has built WordPress websites for over eight years and is currently part of the WPML team. She loves building 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. She enjoys sharing her knowledge along with tips and tricks learned from various experiences.

Although Lauren is a regular on the WordCamp talk circuit, she’s also made a presence at various conferences that include The Grand Strand Tech Expo, New South Digital Conference, and Real Estate Software Seminars.

Kyle is a freelance digital creative in Apex, NC. Originally from Pittsburgh, he served 4 years in the Air Force working on fighter jets before transitioning out and eventually finding an interest in web design and development.

A self-taught developer, Kyle currently does freelance work for several different companies as part of his freelance business, Laverty Creative. In addition to this, he manages a veteran-focused website, Creative Vets, and also designs T-Shirts.

Outside of that he enjoys spending time with his fiancé, 5 kids and 2 dogs,

Kyle is a communications veteran who spent 17 years working for National Hockey League teams, primarily the Carolina Hurricanes. In his NHL tenure he held titles such as Senior Director of Communications and Team Services, Manager of Media Relations and Broadcasting and Website Producer. His name is on the Stanley Cup.

In 2017, Kyle opened Envision Communications and works to help businesses with their marketing, public relations and social + web efforts. He also regularly contributes written content to The Greater Wilmington Business Journal and Wrightsville Beach Magazine.

Born in Pittsburgh, but raised in Raleigh, NC, Kyle graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication with a concentration in electronic journalism. He and his wife Cristina live in Wrightsville Beach with their son, Cash.