WordCamp US 2018 Speakers: Round Five

Announcing WordCamp US 2018 Speakers - Round 5 - Speaker descriptions below

We’re delighted to announce our fifth round of WordCamp US 2018 speakers! If you missed the other announcements, you can see them here: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, and Round 4. This group of four will join us December 7 – 9 in Nashville at the Music City Center. We hope you’ll join us too! Tickets are $40 for two days of talks, contributor day, the afterparty, food, swag, and more. If you’re planning to join us in person, make sure you purchase your ticket soon! Our deadline to get a printed badge and order your preferred size shirt is November 1st. If you want to have a profile image on your badge, make sure you update your gravatar by that date as well!

If you’re travelling to WordCamp US, consider staying in our official hotel! The room rate lasts until November 15th. If you’re coming from outside of the country, make sure you request your visa letter by October 15th!

And now, our fifth round of speakers:

Tonya Mork

Tonya MorkTonya Mork serves to empower people to excel. She leads and serves the incredibly talented makers at XWP as the VP, Engineering & UX. She mentors and teaches at Know the Code and through various mediums. She gives back through open source initiatives.

Her journey to WordPress is an interesting story.

She started in electrical and software engineering back in the mid-1980s. She spent 22 years engineering cool high-tech automated, manufacturing solutions. Her playground was deep into vision-guided robotics, real-time systems, predictive modeling, and global monitoring systems.

Then her world changed forever, as her story took an ugly twist. It’s a gut-wrenching story that she shared on HeroPress.

Flip the page. She found this amazingly inviting community. She’s still in awe of how everyone rolls up their sleeves, gives of their time, and helps one another. Here, in this community, is where she wants to be and contribute to make the web and WordPress better.

Ray Mitchell

Ray MitchellRay is the owner of SixFour Web Design & Marketing, which focuses on meeting the unique marketing needs of small businesses and non-profit organizations. He also serves as a Mentor at the Small Business Center at Forsyth Technical Community College. Initially a networking skeptic, it’s become such a core part of his business that he now considers himself a “Networking Evangelist”.

Active in the local community, Ray is a member of, and sits on the board, of several community non-profit organizations.

Miriam Schwab

Miriam SchwabTwelve years ago Miriam stumbled across WordPress and it was love at first sight. Since then, she has gone on to found one of Israel’s leading WordPress development agencies, illuminea. More recently Miriam founded Strattic, the “unhosting” platform that publishes Open Source CMSs as static and serverless, making them virtually unhackable, and exponentially faster. Five-time organizer of WordCamp Israel, regular speaker at WordPress meetups and events including three-time speaker at WordCamp Europe, and mom of seven. Advocate for women in tech. In her spare time, Miriam likes to…haha spare time as if.

Chris Teitzel

Chris TeitzelAs a third-generation tech nerd, Chris has a passion for technology and its ability to create an impact on lives around the world. After graduating with a degree in Biology, he started Cellar Door Media to create the latest in mobile applications and websites for clients.

In the years since, it has taken him all over the world. He has worked with some of the largest enterprises, e-commerce in the emerging markets of Africa, and even aid work in Haiti and Washington DC. He was at the front lines of the responsive web by being involved in one of the largest themes in Drupal, has worked in both WordPress and Drupal to bring strong encryption to the systems, launching a new startup Lockr to provide secrets management as a SaaS platform.


Check back soon for the next round of speaker announcements! While you’re at it, purchase a ticket to WCUS if you haven’t already.