Aida Correa
I’m passionate about WordCamps & the WordCamp community! My 1st ever WordCamp was WCMiami 2018. I have since attended 9 WordCamps and I have been a speaker, volunteer &/or organizer at one point or another.
I enjoy sharing whatever knowledge I have that I believe will be helpful, especially to newbies and beginners. I’ve learned so much through WordCamps!
Hometown: Jacksonville, FL
Twitter: @lovebuiltlife
Website: http://lovebuiltlife.com
Andrew Norcross
when i was 14, i was riding my bike in the neighborhood when i saw a friend walking ahead of me. i decided to give them a little scare by riding up quickly behind them and braking hard. while speeding up, the chain came off and locked the entire bike, forcing me to fly over the front, landing at the feet of my friend.
i broke both bones in my left wrist, and it still pops to this day.
April Wier
April helps individuals and businesses become the best versions of themselves. This may come in the form of a new, or better, web site or coaching to break through self-imposed limitations. She specializes in helping high-performers reach their goals online. She is heavily involved in Atlanta WordPress community, as a co-organizer of the Woodstock WordPress Meetup and as a former organizer for WordCamp Atlanta. For fun, she runs Sugar Five Design, a digital marketing company in Woodstock, GA.
Hometown: Woodstock, GA
Twitter: @theaprilwier
Website: https://sugarfivedesign.com
Benjamin Kucmierz
I was raised in a family that treated curiosity as a passion. My father raised me to explore and attempt to understand the world around me, which inevitably led to me gutting his computer. Afterwards, he still told me to explore, just with supervision. Nowadays I still satisfy my curiosity by looking at how things work, how systems interact, and how people see those systems. This integrates perfectly with my role at TheeDigital as the Customer Support Manager, where I help clients learn how things work and improve their websites.
Hometown: Raleigh, NC
Twitter: @Ben_Kuc
Website: https://www.theedigital.com
Beth Livingston
A former IT Business Analyst, Instructional Designer, and Project Manager, I built my first WordPress website in 2009 for a side business, was immediately smitten, and left corporate in 2016 to become a WordPress Coach and Designer. Currently I provide real-life project management skills training for WordPress practitioners through my company, WP Roadmaps and Coaching. I also administer the WordPress Project Management Facebook group and am currently creating The Complete Project Management Roadmap for WordPress to be released this year.
Hometown: Greensboro, NC
Twitter: @wproadmaps
Website: https://wproadmaps.com/
Chris Edwards
Chris is co-owner of Data Driven Labs, a WordPress Maintenance and Marketing agency. He is a 19-year Internet marketing veteran with experience in web design & development, search engine optimization, online marketing, social media marketing and mobile development. He specializes in WordPress custom development utilizing either Genesis Framework or underscores and is very active in the WordPress Orlando community. Chris has held development and Internet marketing positions in some of Orlando’s top technology companies.
Hometown: Orlando FL
Twitter: @ChrisEdwardsCE
Website: https://datadrivenlabs.io/
Chris Lema
Chris Lema is a public speaker, blogger, a WordPress & WooCommerce evangelist and the VP of Products at Liquid Web. He’s also the creator of the best business conference for WordPress professionals in Cabo San Lucas, CaboPress.
For twenty five years Chris has developed and managed high performing engineers to build software products – particularly SaaS products in a variety of B2B vertical markets. He’s also spent the last fifteen years coaching startups on product development & marketing strategies.
David Zimmerman
David Zimmerman is an internet marketing consultant who specializes in search. He has several years experience working with B2B companies, especially manufacturers. He started his own consultancy, Reliable Acorn LLC, after working in several agencies. David’s core marketing belief is that all marketing should be measured. Measured marketing is more effective and less expensive. There’s no excuse, in David’s mind, for marketing efforts whose results are not measured.
Hometown: Charlotte, NC
Twitter: @reliableacorn
Website: https://reliableacorn.com/
Dwayne McDaniel
Dwayne McDaniel has been working in tech and open source since 2005.
Once he dipped a toe into the world of Free and Open Source Software, he knew never wanted to work outside of it again. Dwayne first started building in Drupal and WordPress for the San Francisco Improv community in 2013, which lead him to his current role. As a Developer Advocate at Pantheon he has had the privilege of presenting at dozens of community events from Paris to Iceland and from MIT and Stanford.
Reach out at mcdwayne.com or on twitter @mcdwayne
Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Twitter: @mcdwayne
Website: https://mcdwayne.com
Emily Breedlove
Emily is a PR Specialist and Growth Strategist who specializes in building the framework, platforms, and partnerships needed to be impactful in today’s challenging economy. She is the Director of the ScaleUp WNC Accelerator, serving high-growth companies in Western North Carolina and is the host of programs like the Economic Bruncheon, Camp Girl Boss, and WNC Press Pass.
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Twitter: @emilyhbreedlove
Website: http://www.emilybreedlove.com
Erik Wardell
I have the privilege or coaching WordPress site owners and freelancers through the SEO process on a daily basis at Pathfinder SEO. I spend the rest of my time spreading the word about the benefits of guided SEO and doing work on client sites at webShine, a search engine marketing agency in Basalt, Colorado. In my role as an SEO coach, I get to take the complex and confusing world of search and make it approachable for ordinary people who know they need to get found in Google, but don’t know where to start.
Hometown: Basalt, Colorado
Twitter: @wanderinwardell
Website: https://pathfinderseo.com/
Gary Heisey
I created my website at WordCamp AVL. Gary C. Heisey is the Founding Brand and Marketing Strategist with Brand Door. Gary has assisted over 1,000 start-up, growth and scale-up companies to create growth with company branding, marketing, social media and business planning. Gary has been recognized by:
• Small Business Administration
• National Association of Entrepreneurship
• 2016 North Carolina Community College Staff of the Year Award
• 2014 Dr. Molly A. Parkhill BRCC Staff Person of the Year Award
I have taught college classes on creating a WordPress website and content.
Hometown: Hendersonville, NC
Twitter: @BrandDoor
Website: http://branddoor.com
Heather Neff
About Heather Neff…
Heather Shirin Neff is the owner and lead designer with over 19 years of business development, marketing and digital graphic design expertise. She specializes in UX (User Experience) design for websites, and the design of custom vector .svg files for high def retina displays with faster load times. She is an expert in Adobe Creative Cloud and the creation of branded sales collateral.
She is a member of UXPA – User Experience Professionals Association and is a mentor and trainer with Camp Girl Boss WNC.
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Twitter: @neffcreative
Website: http://www.neff-creative.com
Janine Paris
Janine Paris is a project manager trained in design and development. She currently works for Big Boom Design here in Asheville. She is a human person with real human thoughts and feelings. She also has personal interests.
Jeff Bowen
Jeff is an engineer at Automattic currently working on making onboarding flows on WordPress.com as smooth as can be. He’s a usability nerd and is always looking for ways to make the web a better place! He lives in north Florida but his happy place is in the WNC mountains.
Hometown: Jacksonville, FL
Twitter: @alapapa
Website: https://jeff.blog
John McCulley
John McCulley is a full stack developer and has been developing websites and apps since 2005. He fell in love with WordPress in 2009 and has been creating solutions for the platform ever since.
John prides himself in training users how to get the best out of WordPress and not overthink the tool.
John has been featured at CodeStock, the Knoxville American Marketing Association conference and Code TN. He makes regular appearances on both Mornings with Fox43 and the CW20, and he is frequently requested by other local television stations to discuss digital media and tech.
Hometown: Knoxville, TN
Twitter: @johnnymackcodes
Website: http://www.moxleycarmichael.com
Joseph LoPreste
I am co-owner of a web development company located in St. Pete Fl. that has a passion for web accessibility and WordPress.
I bring over 12 years of business and technology experience and I have 2 amazing daughters that give me purpose.
I believe that I can help the disabled community by explaining and teaching how easy web accessibility actually is to implement for fellow WP developers, designers, and agencies.
The people who build and maintain over 1/3 of the internet can make a difference if they realized how easy it is.
Hometown: Saint Petersburg, FL
Twitter: @josephlopreste
Website: https://www.stpetedesign.com/
Joshua Giowaya
I’m Passionate about creating well-crafted, visually engaging and highly usable digital experiences. I have 10+ Years in web design & development at advertising and digital agencies, plus a number of years running my own consultancy. I also bring an extensive background in design that has proven invaluable when contributing to the design process and communicating with creative teams. My hope is to give back to a community that has shared so much knowledge with me.
Twitter: jgiowaya
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN
Website: https://andbrand.co/
Joyanna Hirst
After designing for 8 years I moved into development. I feel there is a huge gap in communication between designers and developers. I want to help inspire designers to do more with their designs and better understand how to design for web.
Hometown: Knoxville TN
Twitter: @joyannahirst
Website: http://joyannahirst.com/
Julie Stevens
WC Asheville 2018 was my very first WordCamp and it absolutely made an amazing impact on me and my business. I would love the opportunity to give back some knowledge to attendees this year!
While I do websites in my business, I also offer social media services, I am a GSuite reseller, and I do lots of training on various technology topics with my clients.
Hometown: Charlotte, NC
Twitter: @rmstechspa
Website: http://www.rmstechspa.com
Julien Melissas
About Julien…
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Twitter: @
Website:
Leah Quintal
Some say that top rankings on Google is where all the glory lies. But Leah knows that the real trick is getting people to take the actions you want after they reach your site. Will they engage with you, buy something in your shop, make a donation? Or will they just bounce back to Google?
Leah has been at the SEO game for over 7 years and uses her digital marketing experience to craft marketing campaigns built on solid strategy, implementation, and measurable results.
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Twitter: @QuintaLeah
Website: https://statusforward.com/
Maryann Davidson
Maryann Davidson’s bucket list is currently 7 pages long, and growing. She has walked through an operating car wash. Her ringtone is the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. She was born the oldest but raised the youngest. The first photograph she sold was to a newspaper, in 1992. Her first camera was the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, which she still has. She lives by 2 mottos: Passion Fuels Purpose and Carpe Diem.
You can find Maryann at www.MaryannDavidson.com or contact her directly at Connect@MaryannDavidson.com.
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Website: https://www.MaryannDavidson.com
Melanie Adcock
Melanie G Adcock has been designing websites since the late 90’s. In May of 2010 Melanie became a full-time freelance Web Designer / Developer. She has been using WordPress exclusively since 2011. Her current clients include several small businesses, continuing care retirement communities, churches, and other non-profit organizations. Melanie and her husband Jay run Adcock Creative Group, a full-service agency in Newnan, Georgia.
Hometown: Newnan, GA
Twitter: @mgacreative
Website: https://adcockcreativegroup.com
Micah Wood
A professional WordPress developer for over a decade, Micah has worked on sites for Fortune 100 companies, has released over a dozen WordPress plugins, is a frequent speaker at WordCamps, co-organizes the WordPress Gwinnett meetup, is a WordCamp Atlanta organizer, is a co-host on the WP Square One podcast, and shares his knowledge by blogging on WordPress development topics. Currently, Micah works at Bluehost and spends most of his time contributing back to WordPress.
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Twitter: @wpscholar
Website: https://wpscholar.com
Michael Mizner
I’m the Director of engineering at Pyxl, WordPress Knoxville organizer, and a passionate web advocate.
Hometown: Knoxville, TN
Twitter: @miznerism
Website: https://pyxl.com
Nathan Ingram
Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress topics via live webinar. He is also the host of the WP Business Podcast.
As the founder of >ADVANCE Coaching, Nathan works with WordPress solopreneurs and business owners individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their businesses.
Nathan has been a freelance web developer since 1995, and is based in Birmingham, Alabama where he has been an organizer for WordCamp Birmingham for several years.
Hometown: Birmingham, AL
Twitter: @nathaningram
Website: https://nathaningram.com
Peter Baylies
Peter has been a programmer for as long as he can remember. He started coding on a Commodore 64, and after attending the NC School of Science and Math, he went on to graduate from NCSU with a degree in Computer Science. He started working with WordPress professionally when he joined Semper Fi Web Design in 2011, and spent time developing on and maintaining plugins such as All in One SEO Pack, and spoke at area WordCamps. Now at Purcado, he is their in-house WordPress expert.
Hometown: Durham, NC
Twitter: @pbaylies
Rich Owings
Rich Owings is a local SEO specialist, focusing on improving local business’s visibility on Google Maps, improving their organic rankings, their online reviews and their mobile presence. He has been involved in Internet marketing since 2005 when he started a technology blog that he took full-time in 2007, and sold in early 2014. That site fueled his interest in and knowledge of SEO and location-based services, and he now focuses on sharing his knowledge with local businesses.
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Twitter: @richowings
Website: https://localiswhereitsat.com/
Russell Fair
Russell is a native Atlantan, and has been using WordPress for over 10 years. He develops custom plugins and themes as a freelance software engineer, and enjoys helping development teams improve their workflows so they can create even more awesome!
Hometown: Boise, ID
Twitter: @rfair
Website: https://318labs.com
Ryan Glisson
I attended last year and found a lack of some more pertinent WP essentials. Not to say that I didn’t find last years WordCamp to be awesome! I’ve dedicated the better half of my life to WP dev and design and would like to share my knowledge with others.
Hometown: Black Mountain, NC
Twitter: @dynamiteavl
Website: http://www.dynamitewebsite.co
Sarah Benoit
Sarah Benoit has worked in the web design, SEO, and social media fields since 2003 and has been teaching classes on related subjects since 2006. As President of Creative Original, she has built a wide variety of small business websites over the years. As Co-founder and Lead Instructor for the JB Media Institute, Sarah Benoit leverages her years of experience as a digital marketing strategist to create timely, relevant, and engaging training content. Sarah speaks, trains, and presents on digital marketing topics at conferences and events throughout the year in the Southeast and beyond.
Sarah Benoit has presented at WordCamp Asheville, WordCamp San Diego 2016, and WordCamp US 2017. She recently received the 2017 Woman Executive of the Year award from WomanUp at the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce. She was inducted into Asheville’s 40 Under Forty in 2013 and is a graduate of Leadership Asheville. She is also a 2017 graduate of the Hive Global Leaders program.
http://www.jbmediainstitute.com
https://profiles.wordpress.org/sarahbenoit
Twitter: @sarahdbenoit
Scott Saunders
I build WordPress themes everyday for a diverse client base who have different sets of needs. Over past 12 years working with WordPress I’ve learned to design and sculpt the WordPress front end to allow the clients to add content quickly and easily while at the same time limiting their ability to diverge from established style and design guidelines.
Hometown: Greensboro NC
Twitter: ipodscott
Website: https://scottsaunders.design
Steven Ayers
Steven specializes in WordPress security, performance, and hosting. He is the author of Security Safe, a WordPress security plugin. He enjoys helping others with WordPress sites, learning about new technology, and traveling the world.
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Twitter: @sovstack
Website: https://sovstack.com
Tara Johnson
Tara Johnson owns AlchemyThree: a digital design and marketing agency in Concord, MA. She’s committed to humanizing the online experience by way of smart design, compelling content and elevated branding. Tara’s been building sites with WordPress since 2006 and adores the WP community!
In her free time Tara loves to knit, ride bikes, hang with her 2 kids and drink the hoppiest IPAs she can find!
Hometown: Concord, MA
Twitter: @alchemy3studio
Website: https://alchemythree.com/
William Jackson
William graduated from South Carolina State University earning
a Bachelor’s in Education, he furthered his education earning a
Masters of Arts in Teaching from Webster University with a focus
on Educational Technology, Social Media and STEM.
Involved in the field of education over 30 years in elementary
and higher education.
William is a member of the TEDxFSCJ social media team with Florida State College of Jacksonville. He manages My Quest To Teach where he shares his journey speaking, blogging and advocating at WordCamp conferences local, national and international.
Hometown: Jacksonville, FL
Twitter: @wmjackson
Website: https://myquesttoteach.com/