Organizers

Lead Organizers

Aaron D. Campbell

Twitter Handle: @AaronCampbell
Hometown: Seminole, Oklahoma, USA
More about Aaron D. Campbell: Aaron D. Campbell
Aaron is an international speaker, open source advocate, and outgoing introvert. He’s been a regular contributor to WordPress for more than a decade, and is currently employed by A2 Hosting. His passion is helping companies work with the WordPress project to improve and support WordPress while providing better and more secure WordPress offerings to their customers.
Breann McDede

Twitter: @breannmcdede
Hometown: Austin, TX
More about Breann McDede: Breann McDede
Her name might be Breann, but everyone calls her Bre (and you should, too)! She has been involved in the WordPress Community for five years, and finds herself loving it more and more as the years go by. Bre has taken on the roles of organizer, volunteer, speaker, and sponsor at dozens of WordCamps, and is a proud member of the WCUS 2023 Lead Sextet.

By day, Bre is the Community & Social Media Manager for Automattic brands, including WordPress.com and Tumblr. By night, she waters her 150+ houseplants, cuddles with her two cats, plays video games with friends, and watches movies with her partner. Oh, and she loves ice cream. Like, she loves it so much that it’s a personality trait. You should get ice cream with Bre.
Joe Simpson Jr

Twitter: @joesimpsonjr
Hometown: Castaic, California, USA
More about Joe Simpson Jr: Joe Simpson Jr
After a life-threatening heart event in 2017, Joe A Simpson Jr’s paradigm shifted. Now he prioritizes doing only the things he loves. WordPress is one of those things. While on leave, he attended his first Meetup volunteering for WordCamp Los Angeles, beginning a whirlwind of giving back to the WordPress community.

When he saw no WordCamp speakers that looked like him, Joe grabbed a mic and took to the stage. Tired of late-night commutes around the Southland to WordPress, he started two local Meetups that culminated in Lead Organizing the region’s first WordCamps in Santa Clarita (’19, ’20, and ’21), welcoming new voices worldwide.

He spent the early part of his career as a designer in corporate identity groups with Fortune 500 companies (Unisys Corporation and Chrysler Corporation) during merger rebranding. Joe currently works at Metro Los Angeles managing their WordPress network of websites.
Julia Golomb

Hometowns: Oakland, California, USA and Stratham, New Hampshire, USA
More about Julia Golomb: Julia Golomb
Julia Golomb is a full-time contributor to the WordPress Community team, sponsored by Automattic. She delights in bringing people together around a shared love of WordPress, and is dedicated to promoting the open source values of transparency, collaboration, inclusiveness and community. With a background in conflict resolution and mediation, Julia helps WordPress meetup and WordCamp organizers worldwide build inspiring and inclusive WordPress communities. When she’s not busy with WordPress, you’ll find her biking, befriending dogs, and spending time in the forest.
Kevin Cristiano

Twitter: @kcristiano
Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
More about Kevin Cristiano: Kevin Cristiano
Kevin came to WordPress in 2006 by chance and got hooked because of its ability to give site owners the capacity to not only control their content, but also to manage their sites themselves. You can find him at tadpole.cc working with non-profits.
Sandy Edwards

Twitter: @SunSandDesign
Hometown: Orlando, Florida, USA
More about Sandy Edwards: Sandy Edwards
Sandy Edwards has been working in the online marketing space since 2014. She started at a niche firm that utilized WordPress to create sites quickly utilizing several options frameworks. Today, she works at GoDaddy as a Senior Marketing Manager on the Venture Forward Project and also owns Data Driven Labs, a WordPress-focused Agency that focuses on WordPress support.

When she is not working, she loves to give back by teaching kids about coding, WordPress, and other technical skills. Sandy is very active in the event planning community and is excited to see what changes are coming in the upcoming years to the tech space!

Accessibility

Alex Stine

Twitter: @alexleestine303
Hometown: Dallas, Texas, USA
More about Alex Stine: Alex Stine
Alex Stine is a Cloud Platform Engineer at Waystar and an independent accessibility consultant. He is part of the Accessibility Team, regularly contributing to WordPress.

Alex got his start in web development thanks to WordPress by starting off in tech support, moving into accessibility development, and finally managing the underlying infrastructure that WordPress self-hosted sites run on. Not long after starting his career, Alex lost what vision he had and is now completely blind. This was the single event that motivated him to enter the accessibility world. His goal is to help everyone have the same access to information.
Michelle Frechette

Twitter: @michelleames
Hometown: Hilton, New York, USA
More about Michelle Frechette: Michelle Frechette
Michelle Frechette is the Director of Community Engagement for StellarWP at Liquid Web.

Michelle was called “The busiest woman in WordPress,” by Matt Mullenweg at WCUS 2022.

In addition to her work at StellarWP, Michelle is the Podcast Barista at WPCoffeeTalk.com, cofounder of underrepresentedintech.com, creator of wpcareerpages.com, the president of the board for BigOrangeHeart.org, Director of Community Relations and contributor at PostStatus.com, co-host of the WPMotivate podcast, co-host of the Audacity Marketing podcast, author, business coach, and a frequent organizer and speaker at WordPress events. Michelle lives outside of Rochester, NY where she’s an avid nature photographer. You can learn more about Michelle at meetmichelle.online.

Attendee Experience

Michele Butcher-Jones

Twitter: @michele_butcher
More about Michele Butcher-Jones: Michele Butcher-Jones
Michele Butcher-Jones is a lover of all things Open Source, a WordPress Core Contributor, an international speaker, and an avid campaigner to leave the world in a better place. She has spent over a decade helping others with their online presence including site building, maintaining, hosting, and security. Michele spends her working time between agency support and higher education. She also runs her own WordPress shop at 13Core and is the Head Geek at Can’t Speak Geek.

Her passion for making the web a better place doesn’t stop there! She gives back to the community as a Meetup Organizer for St Louis and the Lead Organizer for the Southern Illinois WordPress Meetup. Michele is typically up for any type of contributing to the WordPress Community often as a speaker, volunteer, answering questions in the forums, and teaching WordPress to beginners.

Now that she is an empty nester, Michele is spending her time as a photographer, traveler, and collector of jewelry. She is currently working on her first book set to be completed in 2024, and is always down for an adventure, especially if it involves great food or drinks.
Sam Daugherty

Twitter: @sam_daugherty4
Hometown: Jacksonville, Florida, USA
More about Sam Daugherty: Sam Daugherty
Sam is the Marketing Manager at Paid Memberships Pro. She grew up working in a small family business and loves to support other small businesses. When she is not wearing her marketing hat, she enjoys quilting and spending time with her dog.
Sophia DeRosia

Twitter: @Erin_Go_Blog
Hometown: Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
More about Sophia DeRosia: Sophia DeRosia
Sophia DeRosia is an aspiring marketer in the WordPress space. She is currently a Marketing/ Sales coordinator at WPConnects, and is also working on the CertifyWP project.

While growing and finding her space in the world, Sophia’s stepping back to recover from hustle culture and develop a fulfilling life, and career. She spends her days working, and prioritizing the life of her two young bunnies, Barb and Nemo.
Tiffany Miller

Twitter: @mrsmilli1207
Hometown: Arlington, Texas, USA
More about Tiffany Miller: Tiffany Miller
Tiffany Miller is currently the Director of Happiness Experience at Automattic where she focuses on the Growth and Development of their support team. She is passionate about helping people find their place on the web and loves showing others how powerful WordPress can be in helping them achieve the sites they have envisioned.

With a background in fundraising and volunteering, she got involved with her local WordPress community in DFW (and WCUS) as a volunteer and organizer as a way to give back to the community that has given so much to her. She brings with her many years of experience in project management and operational analysis.

Away from the internet, Tiffany and her husband enjoy Tex-Mex with or without their 4 daughters. They also love supporting their girls in their different activities. She is also a TED-talk enthusiast and loves to follow the work of her favorite TED speakers.
Tom Finley

Contributors

Cami Kaos

Twitter: @camikaos
Hometown: Portland, Oregon, USA
More about Cami Kaos: Cami Kaos
Cami Kaos hates writing bios, but for WordCamp US she’s willing to do it! As a long-time contributor to the WordPress Open Source Project, Cami has been honored to volunteer, speak, mentor, and organize more WordCamps than she can count. When she’s not giving her all to the world of WordCamps she’s working as a Talent Operations Manager for Automattic, writing poetry that never seems to see the light of day, or spending time on her cozy front porch with her partner and their very old cat.

If you’d like to find out more about her you can follow her on Instagram or anywhere else the username camikaos is found.
david wolfpaw

Mastodon: @david@tech.lgbt
Hometown: Winter Park, Florida, USA
More about david wolfpaw: david wolfpaw
david wolfpaw (they/them) is a professional web developer focused on WordPress theme and plugin development. They emphasize helping small businesses, providing ongoing maintenance and support, and educating users through their service FixUpFox.

They love attending WordCamps! They get to meet new people, catch up with old friends, and have the kind of conversations that get them thinking about things in a totally different light.
Kat Zarabanda

Twitter: @lowkyta
Hometown: Merida, Yucatán, Mexico
More about Kat Zarabanda: Kat Zarabanda
Kat Zarabanda is a design strategist fascinated with helping entrepreneurs and creative professionals to thrive in their businesses by providing web experiences, eye-catching graphics, and innovative digital products.

Beyond her design business pursuits, Kat is a WordPress enthusiast and proud Colombian immigrant. Since joining the WordPress US community in 2017, driven by curiosity and intuition, she has actively collaborated and contributed to various WordCamp US editions, enriching the community with her talents and expertise. When not exploring different corners of Mexico, the United States, Colombia, or indulging in new foodie, musical, coffee, or yogic experiences, Kat cherishes quality time with her loved ones in Yucatan. Discover more of her work at katzarabanda.rocks and sarazstudio.com
Micah Wood

Twitter: @wpscholar
Hometown: Snellville, Georgia, USA
More about Micah Wood: Micah Wood
Micah Wood is a WordPress developer at Bluehost. He’s a WordPress core contributor, plugin developer, and meetup organizer and has spent the last 15 years learning, living, and building with WordPress.

Design

Haeun Park

Hometown: San Jose, California, USA
More about Haeun Park: Haeun Park
Haeun is a website design and developer currently working at Automattic helping users have a better and seamless experience building their sites on WordPress.com. Based in San Jose, CA, Haeun has worked with non-profits within the area helping them develop and manage WordPress sites for the past 6 years.
James Tyron

Twitter: @JamesTryon
Hometown: Oviedo, Florida, USA
More about James Tyron: James Tyron
James Tryon is the Founder of Easily Amused, co-organizer of WordPress Orlando, and a big fan of wapuus. He has been helping clients for over two decades. Tryon has an eye for design & usability and possesses the know-how to plan, design, develop, and promote it all if needed.

An avid collector of random awesomeness, Tryon always finds something interesting to spark his creativity. When not working, he is more than likely building something with his kids, playing with toys, watching his fish, or hanging out with his friends & family.
Jennifer Powers

Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
More about Jennifer Powers: Jennifer Powers
Jennifer has been designing and developing custom WordPress websites for over 10 years. Seeing the evolution of WordPress has been amazing and she wants to help in any way possible for its continued success. The WordPress community is very supportive and valuable. She’s thrilled to have been chosen to help with this year’s WordCamp US and looks forward to attending the event in August!
Sam Garner

Twitter: @SomethingSoSam
Hometown: Orlando, Florida, USA
More about Sam Garner: Sam Garner
Sam Garner is a highly experienced multimedia designer with a diverse portfolio spanning 15 years in the industry. With a track record of working with both international corporations and non-profit organizations, she has gained valuable insights and experience in delivering effective design solutions across a wide range of industries.

When she’s not designing she loves spending time with her family (husband Tyler, daughter Zelda, and dog Dash) as well as baking, party planning, cosplaying, and finding all the best vegan food!

Photography

Daniel Schutzmith

Twitter: @schutzsmith
Hometown: Tampa, Florida, USA
More about Daniel Schutzmith: Daniel Schutzmith
Daniel Schutzsmith is a rare breed – a hybrid of equal parts design, code, strategy, and management. He’s devoted his career to making positive change to protect our world for generations to come!

Currently, Daniel is the Website and Digital Project Manager for Pinellas County Government, creating websites and interactive experiences to help the public get the information they need easily and intuitively.

When not working, he enjoys giving back his time to the WordPress community as a WordCamp organizer (WCUS 23, WCUS 22, WCUS 20, WC Miami 2020, WC NYC 2018), a Meetup organizer (New Port Richey WordPress Meetup), and a Producer at The WP Minute while also building several side projects.

After all of that, in his free time, he enjoys walking in the fresh air, coding by the pool, drinking craft non-alcoholic beer, and hanging out with his family.
Gale Wallace

Twitter: @GaleWallace
Hometown: Rockford, Illinois, USA
More about Gale Wallace: Gale Wallace
Gale Wallace is currently a Customer Success Manager for Pantheon.io, a WebOps platform, supporting WordPress and Drupal. She has numerous opportunities to work with a number of amazing customers, assessing site performance, potential improvements, security risks, and more.

Leveraging her more than 20 years in the web development industry, Gale also is an instructor for ThriveDX Digital Marketing program, teaching WordPress development and UX/UI, at a variety of universities across the US.

While Gale loves everything web development & digital marketing, she is equally passionate about her family, photography, videography, and flying drones.

PR/Communications

Brett Dunst

Twitter: @TremendousValue
Hometown: Anaheim, California, USA
More about Brett Dunst: Brett Dunst
Brett Dunst is Vice President of Corporate Communications at DreamHost, a web hosting and managed WordPress service provider. A brand marketing and public relations pro, Brett can often be found speaking at WordCamps and marketing conferences, consulting for small businesses to understand and surface their brands’ strengths, and being quoted in outlets including VentureBeat, Fast Company, and NPR. Brett is passionate about the Open Web and supporting the people that help make it happen.
Donna Cavalier

Twitter: @DonnaCavalier
Hometown: Denham Springs, Louisiana, USA
More about Donna Cavalier: Donna Cavalier
Donna Cavalier currently works at Automattic as a Managing Editor for WordPress.com. Prior to that, she was a Technical Writer for Elementor for 2 years. In the decades before, she was a freelance web designer, developer, and SEO. She’s been entrenched in all things WordPress since at least 2005 and has always believed we’re here to help people succeed. She also loves writing fiction, with two mystery / suspense novels published under the pen name of Donna D. Fontenot and a third in progress.
Karen Jeanne Radley

Twitter: @KJRwebmasters
Hometown: New York, New York
More about Karen Jeanne Radley: Karen Jeanne Radley
Karen Jeanne Radley, is the owner of KJRWebmasters, using WordPress to design websites & digital marketing strategized for growth. KJRWebmasters works with small to medium-sized businesses, theater, and non-profit organizations.

Karen has over 21 years of experience in media and technology, working in a wide variety of industries, and is a frequent guest lecturer at NYU and other institutions on building brands using websites and Social Media.

A longstanding member of the WordPress community, this is her second year as a member of the WordCamp US organizational team. She has been part of the WordCamp NYC team for several years.
Katie Richards

Mastodon: @kjrichards@indieweb.social
Hometown: Grandville, Michigan, USA
More about Katie Richards: Katie Richards
Katie Richards (she/her) is a human-focused WordPress community member who spends her time working with businesses of all sorts as an Organizational Improvement Consultant. She admits she is a type-A person who enjoys creating systems and structure and has decided to use those skills for the good of the open web, working with businesses of all sorts, from other independent contractors to organizations with hundreds of employees. Katie can be found procrasti-cleaning when she needs a moment to get her thoughts in order.

When not working, Katie is wrangling her three wild children, hanging out with her husband (and favorite person of all time), Brian, evangelizing on behalf of cheese, and reading (nothing self-improving).

Programming

David Brattoli

Twitter: @DavidMBrattoli
Hometown: Elyria, Ohio, USA
More about David Brattoli: David Brattoli
David Brattoli is a web developer in the Cleveland area specializing in WordPress. He is the Development Team Manager at KHM Travel Group, a leading host travel agency. Beyond his work with KHM Travel, he is also an independent contractor working on, and building projects for clients in various industries.

David has been using WordPress since 2012 and got involved in the Northeast Ohio WordPress community in 2016. Since joining the community, he has spoken and volunteered at many WordCamps all across Ohio. David was a member of the organizer team behind WordCamp Kent 2018, WordCamp Kent 2019, WordCamp Kent 2020, and WordCamp Northeast Ohio 2021. For the last two camps, he served as lead organizer. David has also served on the Northeast Ohio WordPress Meetup Group-West organizer team since January 2019. Beyond his work with the Ohio community, David has volunteered at several virtual WordCamps, including WordCamp San Antonio 2020, WordCamp Santa Clarita 2020, and WordCamp Santa Clarita 2021.

Outside of WordPress, he enjoys movies, video games, and photography.
David E. Smith

Twitter: @dsXLII
Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
More about David E. Smith: David E. Smith
David (he/him) is a devops engineer at Pagely, formerly WashU, with over a dozen years of experience with WordPress (and far more years than he cares to admit working in IT generally). He specializes in high-availability and resiliency for WordPress sites and is very bad at video games.
Matt Clancy

Hometown: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
More about Matt Clancy: Matt Clancy
Matthew “Clancy” Clancy started working with GoDaddy in customer support in 2005 and has enjoyed roles from Windows Administration, Training Advanced Teams, to Product Management. A Phoenix native and desert lover, based in Phoenix, AZ he is a Sr. Product Manager for GoDaddy Pro Experience working across teams to create amazing logged-in experiences.

In his free time, he enjoys spending as much time with his 2 kids and lovely wife as possible, being a dog dad, tending to his trees, geek things (like gaming and Star Wars), having a pint, and contributing back to the WordPress community. His heroes are Samwise, The Wasp, Captain America, Kenobi, R2-D2, and Ahsoka Tano.
Rachel Winchester

Twitter: @VisualWebmaster
Hometown: Easton, Pennsylvania, USA
More about Rachel Winchester: Rachel Winchester
Rachel Winchester, or Win for short, is an independent product designer and startup founder who occasionally dabbles in internet art and other creative projects. Catch her hosting the virtual Philly WordPress Meetup every month.

Win began her career by teaching herself digital marketing, participating in WordPress meetups, and creating arts-related websites. She deepened her knowledge by completing a UX Design bootcamp while building websites for artists, academics, and entrepreneurs. Recently, she completed a contract with DigitalCube, working on their WordPress hosting products, client websites, and other initiatives for DC’s users and their communities.

Drawing on her art history and interpretation studies at Swarthmore College, Win now runs Visual Webmaster L.L.C., a boutique internet art and product design consulting firm.

Volunteers

Dustin Hartzler

Twitter: @dustinhartzler
Hometown: Dayton, Ohio, USA
More about Dustin Hartzler: Dustin Hartzler
Dustin is a WordPress.com Happiness Engineer at Automattic. If working with WordPress all day wasn’t enough, he spends time each week recording his WordPress podcast call Your Website Engineer. He enjoys sharing WordPress news, new plugins, and actionable guides to improve your website.

When he’s not in front of the computer (which is rare), he enjoys spending time CrossFitting, reading, traveling and helping his wife run her businesses (surprise, he gets all the WordPress tasks!). He lives in Dayton, OH with his wife, 9 year old daughter, and 6 year old son.
Machelle Cox

Twitter: @wpshellbelle
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky, USA
More about Machelle Cox: Machelle Cox
Machelle Cox is a WordPress.com Happiness Engineer at Automattic. She is located in Louisville, KY and lives with her daughter and young puppy. She has several years of WordPress experience and is driven by a strong desire to help others. Her passion lies in guiding and educating people on how to use WordPress to fit their website needs. She regularly attends WordCamps and has both organized and volunteered for local WordCamps and WordCamp US in the past. When Machelle isn’t working, she really enjoys reading, crafting, traveling, hiking, and spending quality time with her daughter and puppy.
Miriam Goldman

Hometown: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
More about Miriam Goldman: Miriam Goldman
Miriam Goldman is a Technical Lead at Kanopi Studios, bridging the gap between the development team, project managers, and clients. She is a full-stack developer with over 17 years of experience. Heavily involved in the WordPress Community, she regularly speaks at WordCamps across North America and is a member of the Ottawa WordCamp and WordPress Meetup organizing teams.

Outside of her technical life, she is a karate sensei holding a 4th-degree black belt and plays percussion in a community band.

Web

Russell Heimlich

Twitter: @kingkool68
Hometown: Ellicott City, Maryland, USA
More about Russell Heimlich: Russell Heimlich
Russell Heimlich has been working with WordPress for over 15 years and is currently the lead marketing developer at CoderPad.io. Outside of WordPress he enjoys playing Settlers of Catan, chasing his 3 kids around, and overall living his best Dad life.
ryelle

Mastodon: @ryelle@front-end.social
Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
More about ryelle: ryelle
ryelle has been a developer for over 10 years, with the last 8 at Automattic. She’s worked across Jetpack, WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and now builds tools for the WordPress community. ryelle is a core committer and a meta contributor, working on the Block Directory, Pattern Directory, and other WordPress.org projects. She lives in Philadelphia with her partner, two cats, and two dogs.
Sandy Rao

Twitter: @smudra
Hometown: Franklin, TN
More about Sandy Rao: Sandy Rao
Meet a critical thinker turned creative thinker back to a critical thinker, Sandy Rao. A rare find. Multi-linguistic, thoughtful, patient, methodical, structured, problem solver are some of the words that describe her.

In 2005, Sandy started her second career as a Graphic Designer from being an Accountant. Working at XMi Association Management, she was introduced to web development work with Drupal and WordPress, in 2009. To improve her skills, she completed her B.F.A. in 2016, at O’More College of Design (now Belmont University) with Interactive Design as her major. She’s been working on WordPress ever since.

Sandy now works as a Front-end Web Developer at PurSolutions, a research based protein manufacturing company.
Tamsin Davis-Langley

Hometown: Providence, Rhode Island, USA
More about Tamsin Davis-Langley: Tamsin Davis-Langley
Tamsin Davis-Langley is a Happiness Engineer with WordPress.com. She was born in the early Seventies, which makes her the same age as the kids in Stranger Things. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, USA with her polymath superhero wife and two adorably demonic cats. She has a degree in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Washington. Her past professional hijinks include technical writing, administrative sorcery in healthcare, tutoring university students on the importance of the Oxford comma, and playing electric guitar while bouncing on a trampoline. The first computer she used to get online was a Commodore 64, and she wrote her first website in HTML 2 using Notepad. She likes things much better now.

Organizers

Lead Organizers

Aaron D. Campbell

Breann McDede

Joe Simpson Jr

Julia Golomb

Kevin Cristiano

Sandy Edwards

Accessibility

Alex Stine

Michelle Frechette

Attendee Experience

Michele Butcher-Jones

Sam Daugherty

Sophia DeRosia

Tiffany Miller

Tom Finley

Contributors

Cami Kaos

david wolfpaw

Kat Zarabanda

Micah Wood

Design

Haeun Park

James Tyron

Jennifer Powers

Sam Garner

Photography

Daniel Schutzmith

Gale Wallace

PR/Communications

Brett Dunst

Donna Cavalier

Karen Jeanne Radley

Katie Richards

Programming

David Brattoli

David E. Smith

Matt Clancy

Rachel Winchester

Sponsors

Ali Parisi

Baljinder Singh

Ken Elliott

Kim White

Megan Rose

Volunteers

Dustin Hartzler

Machelle Cox

Miriam Goldman

Web

Russell Heimlich

ryelle

Sandy Rao

Tamsin Davis-Langley

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