Speakers

Aaron Ware

Aaron Ware is a President and Loud Mouth at Linchpin: A full service creative agency specializing in brand and online marketing. Over the past decade Aaron has worked with leading brands, start-ups and everyone in between to develop innovative, highly interactive, feature-rich websites and online apps.
Today he’s becoming more active in the WordPress development scene through open source plugins and as a guest speaker at Providence-area events.
Reach out to Aaron any time you need a dose of his technical expertise, project management skills… or even if you’re just missing his wit, charm and (self-described) stunning good looks.

Al Caldarone

I have a B.S. in Information Science as well as an A.S. in Applied Computer Science. I’ve been working in the I.T. Industry for the past 20 years while coding websites since 1998 on too many platforms to remember. By day I’m a Senior Programmer Analyst for the State of Rhode Island, specializing in .Net, VB, jQuery, SQL, PHP, HTML, CSS, by night I’m a freelance developer building websites and custom WordPress themes.

Andrew Nacin

Andrew Nacin is a lead developer of WordPress, squashing bugs, wrangling contributions, and spearheading new development. He has strong feelings about the core philosophies of WordPress, among them “decisions, not options” — software should be opinionated in lieu of burdening the user with too many options. He works for WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg at Audrey Capital, where he is primarily tasked with working on WordPress core and keeping the lights on at WordPress.org. He resides in downtown Washington, D.C., with his wife. You can follow him on Twitter at @nacin.

Brad Parbs

Brad Parbs is a core contributor, plugin author, theme designer, open source fanatic, and startup lover. Brad has created open source WordPress tools, themes, and plugins. Brad currently runs Snow Day Group, a Milwaukee-based web development, and web application development agency.

Brennen Byrne

Brennen Byrne is the founder and CEO of Clef, a new identity company with the mission of replacing less secure usernames and passwords with mobile cryptography. Brennen is an active speaker with experience in user authentication, data protection and cryptographic digital identity protection solutions. Clef is located in San Francisco, CA and is privately funded company.

Christopher Cochran

Chris has been designing and engineering WordPress-centric solutions for years. A true Design Engineer to his core, Chris is the guy that picks out typefaces in the real world. He has taken college courses in Illustration and Graphic Design, and has a minor in psychology. Chris believes that design is tactile; in fact, he still starts his designs with paper and pencil. When he is not designing or developing, he can often be found doodling in a sketchbook, playing music (he plays both piano and guitar), or in the kitchen cooking.

Dave Ross

WordPress plugin developer. Cat whisperer. Burrito connoisseur. In college, Dave Ross learned about computers from their silicon on up, but he was drawn to the early web by its ability to bring people together and give individuals a global voice. He’s been building web sites for almost two decades, and recently joined 10up’s talented team as a Senior Web Engineer.

Dr. Renee Hobbs

Renee Hobbs is an internationally recognized author on digital and media literacy education and Professor and Founding Director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island.

Frederick Townes

Frederick Townes was the Founding Chief Technical Officer of Mashable, one of the top independent media sites worldwide and is currently the Senior Technical Advisor.

As a search / social media marketer and WordPress consultant, Frederick’s projects typically include WordPress as a core element. One of his largest contributions to the WordPress community was his web performance optimization framework W3 Total Cache.

Since 2003 his agency W3 EDGE has assisted startups and well-known brands like: ASOS, Adorama, AIGA, AT&T, Brian Solis, Center for Disease Control, Constant Contact, CVS Pharmacy, Envato, Hyatt, Jonathan Snook, Kodak, Hubspot, Lord & Taylor, Mashable, Microsoft, Neil Patel, Pearsonified, R.E.I., Sanyo, Sherwin Williams, Smashing Magazine, Southwest Airlines, Staples, Sony, Weight Watchers, Yahoo, Yoast and others.

He is also a serial web entrepreneur and technologist. One of his recent projects, W3 MARKUP, launched in 2007, was acquired after only 11 short months prior to his moving to Florence, Italy in 2008. Frederick currently splits time in Boston still where he focuses on his latest project Placester as a co-founder.

Jake Goldman

Jake Goldman is the President of 10up, a full service web agency that imagines, builds, and grows amazing CMS Sites with WordPress. At 10up, Jake serves brand name clients like TechCrunch, Consumer Reports, NBC Universal Sports, Trulia, Juicy Couture, and Bates College.

Over the past 5 years, Jake has been a writer and expert reviewer for Smashing Magazine, taught WordPress at Boston University, and spoke at dozens of conferences around the country. He is a core contributor to WordPress and maintains some of the highest rated plug-ins on the official repository, downloaded over 400,000 times.

Jared Novack

Jared is a founder of Upstatement, a web design firm located in Boston that specializes in responsive websites for media companies (like BostonGlobe.com). At Upstatement he directs projects and uses WordPress to build and prototype sites. Jared was formally the newsroom developer at the Houston Chronicle and Boston Globe and an adjunct professor at MassArt. He graduated from Syracuse University in 2006 with a BA in Computer Art.

Jesse Friedman

Jesse Friedman is a veteran WordPress developer. In 2012 he wrote the “Web Designers Guide to WordPress”. With years of experience as a developer, speaker, leader, and a Professor he delivers impactful and educational talks. Currently Jesse is the Director of Web Interface and Development at Astonish, the premier Digital Marketing Company for the Insurance Industry. Jesse co-organizes two local WordPress meetups and is very active in the community. He works closely with his team, students and others to share knowledge and bring forth a better future for web design and development.

John James Jacoby

Administrator of Alliteration and Algorithm Aesthetics at 10up.
Vince Glortho of WordPress.com VIP.
Bee Keeper of BuddyPress and bbPress.
Father and friend to Paul the Puppy.
Cutter of Records; Shifter of Gears.

Jon Moss

Jon Moss is a fourth grade teacher and educational technology leader in Avon,
Connecticut. He has used WordPress for many years for both his classroom website and his educational technology website, and he frequently advocates for WordPress’s use at the Pre K-­12 level. Besides focusing on teacher websites, Jon’s educational technology work often addresses interactive whiteboard integration, data collection and analysis, iPad use in the classroom, and professional development for teachers. Jon has a master’s degree in educational technology from Central Connecticut State University’s Center for Innovation in Teaching and Technology, and he enjoys networking with other educational technology professionals on Twitter (@JonMossEdTech).

Jonathan Desrosiers

Jonathan Desrosiers is a Web Developer based in Dartmouth, MA. He works on WordPress websites of all different shapes and sizes, covering the spectrum from simple to complex, including WordPress VIP hosted sites.
Jonathan is a Web Engineer at Linchpin. He also provides development and consulting services to clients throughout the New England area.
Armed with his front & back end coding skills, affection for great design, a hankering for exceptional user experience, and his boisterous sense of humor, he is on a mission to improve the Internet one site at a time!

K.Adam White

K.Adam White is an engineer at Bocoup, an Open Web technology company located in Boston, MA, where he builds JavaScript applications and evangelizes for the web as an open technology platform. K.Adam has been a co-organizer of the Boston WordPress meetup since 2012, and has presented on WordPress and front-end development best practices at meetups and WordCamps across the country.

Kurt Eng

Kurt Eng :: is a biochemist/biomedical engineer by training. When not researching cancer biology or programming robot, he can usually be found at the Boston WordPress Meetup, LiveWP.tv or gaming! While consulting WordPress in his free time, Kurt also finds time to cook, run and garden.

Luke Gedeon

Luke started working with 10up in Spring 2011, looking for new challenges that would give him an opportunity to stretch his coding muscles. Since that time, he has become an invaluable asset to clients like TechCrunch, where his thoughtful approach to coding, knack for seeing the bigger picture under the hood, and client dedication has been essential.

Luke’s specialty is ensuring optimal coding practices both for individual functional components and holistic implementations. Luke is often responsible for internal and external code audits and reviews.

Luke has become a leading organizer for the WordPress Providence Meetup, and was a volunteer at WordCamp Boston in 2011. He has spoken at WordCamps in New York and Boston, and is now leading the organization of WordCamp Providence. Before joining team 10up, Luke managed his own web development agency, which specialized in WordPress implementations for small businesses.

A proud family man, when Luke is not writing code, he can usually be found spending time with his wife and six children, and occasionally, one of his many siblings. Luke is also a hobbyist student of linguistics, fascinated by the dynamics of different languages – a natural fit for a developer.

Matt Medeiros

Matt Medeiros is the co-founder of SlocumStudio.com and interviews WordPress entrepreneurs on MattReport.com.

Matthew Boynes

Matthew Boynes is a lead developer at Alley Interactive. The only thing Matt loves more than developing on WordPress is helping others develop on and solve complex problems using WordPress. When he’s not coding, you’ll often find Matt engaged in some outdoor activity like hiking or skiing.

Mel Choyce

Mel is a UI & UX designer living in Boston. She started using WordPress shortly after joining the web industry in 2008, and it’s been love ever since. Mel recently joined Automattic as a Design Engineer, where she works on improving user experience for new users on WordPress.com. She loves big typography, cold-brewed coffee, and reading on the T.

Ramesh Kumar

Ramesh has been consulting with brands like CVS, LEGO, Verizon, and Deluxe. Mobile, Search, Analytics, Content and eCommerce Strategy are some of his focus areas. While trailing his life as a dad and staying up to date with all things social media at ThePapaPost.com, he also creates playful learning opportunities IRL at DadsDoGood.com.

reiko

Reiko is co-principle of TRB Design, Inc., and The Toolbox, Inc. TRB Design is a video production and web strategy company. TRB Design, Inc. has produced hundreds of videos for retail sales and for web distribution; and has developed and consulted on web marketing strategies for many companies and non-profit organizations. The goals of TRB’s strategies include finding and using the most appropriate web tools and technologies to help companies and individuals to integrate effective. The Toolbox Inc. provides technology education, training and services for small business, start-ups, entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations. Our feature event is Tech Day Camp, providing a day of technology education in Mass.

Richard Dinh

I am a Consultant at NorthPoint Solutions in New York City. I focus on content management systems in both open and closed source software. I’ve worked with Sitecore, Drupal, and WordPress.

Sam Hotchkiss

Sam is a principal and lead developer at Hotchkiss Consulting Group, a development-heavy, WordPress-only interactive agency in Bath, Maine.

He started writing code when he was 6 years old and started building HyperCard stacks. From there he progressed to PHP (in 1997), and started Hotchkiss Consulting Group in 2003. In 2006, HCG began focusing exclusively on WordPress.

Since then, HCG has grown from just Sam and Becky (his wife), to a team of 7 designers and developers who are focused on growing businesses and solving complex problems using WordPress. HCG does work for publicly traded companies, international non-profits, universities, and large blog networks in addition to small startups and mom-and-pop shops.

In April of this year, HCG launched the BruteProtect plugin, which protects WordPress sites from distributed brute force attacks by sharing failed login data between all sites who use the plugin, protecting users against the large botnet that has been attacking WordPress sites. In the past three months BruteProtect has been installed on over 4,000 sites and has blocked over 2.5 million attacks.

Steph Yiu

Steph Yiu works on the VIP Team at WordPress.com. She is also the founder of DenizenMag.com, an online magazine for Third Culture Kids. Previously, she has worked at America’s Test Kitchen, Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe.

T. Michael Tracy

BFA, Illustration, RISD; Web Design & Development Certificate, RISD/CE; Adobe Certified Expert; Titanium Mobile Certified App Developer. Tracy is an award-winning artist, writer and inventor who has been a freelance web developer for several years, and is a regularly published author on art and design in various publications.
He has successfully patented several 3D video imaging technologies, resulting in a 3DTV requiring no 3D glasses. Currently instructing Web Development at RISD, subjects including WordPress, iOS/Android App Development, PHP, CSS, Photoshop, and Cross Platform Mobile App Development..

Taylor Lovett

I’ve been working with WP for 6 years. I have a plugin Safe Redirect Manager that is hosted on WP.com VIP. I am a core contributor. I’ve contributed to bbPress and Jetpack. I love learning, and I love WordPress. I’m more of a backend, caching algorithm, multi-site, database management kind of guy; I do front end stuff but I’m not as passionate about it. I love solving interesting problems.

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