We’ve thanked the sponsors, and we’ve thanked the speakers, now it’s time to thank the WordCamp Sacramento Organizing Team! It’s takes a crazy amount of hours to plan, organize, manage, and run WordCamp Sacramento and these eight members of our local WordPress community stepped up in a big way — with their time and talents.
For months the team has ben communicating via the Sacramento WordPress Slack Channel, holding meetings, talking to vendors, negotiating pricing, managing the website, writing content, handling catering, running errands, planning the after party and dinner, wrangling speakers, managing the budget, and much more to make the event happen — all because they love WordPress and want to give back to the community that has given to them.
Here are the members of the WordCamp Sacramento 2015 organizing team (and if you see them at the event, be sure to say thanks):
2015 Organizing Team
Bill Mead
2015 LEAD ORGANIZER
Bill Mead is currently the Director of Design at Art Institute of California, Sacramento, where he also teaches web classes. He has been building custom WordPress websites since 2005, and loves the platform and the community. He helped found the Sacramento WordPress Meetup Group in 2010 and after a long hiatus is glad to be back involved in the community. Bill lives in Davis with his wife, cat, dog and chicken.
Brian Bourn
DEVELOPMENT & VOLUNTEER WRANGLER
Brian Bourn is the chief executive and development director at Bourn Creative, a full service design company and Genesis recommended developer, celebrating its 10 year anniversary this year. He keeps business running smoothly, moving forward, and growing year after year. With a passion for business, an eye for design, and a predilection for code, he provides consulting for small to medium-size businesses, works with clients around the globe on website strategy, and brings their vision to life through UX design and development with meticulous precision. Brian is also the lead organizer and wrangler of the Sacramento WordPress meetup group.
Jennifer Bourn
DESIGN & CONTENT DIRECTOR
Jennifer Bourn is the founder and creative director for Bourn Creative. She is an award-winning designer with a penchant for writing, white space, chocolate, and Legos. She has been in the design, web, and digital strategy trenches since 1997, working with corporations, casinos, professional sports teams, magazines, creative agencies, political campaigns, small to medium-size businesses, and entrepreneurs alike. Today she is a sought-after consultant for brand, website, and digital strategy, and specializes in brand development and WordPress theme design. When not obsessing over pixels, margins, and type, Jennifer manages the Bourn Creative brand, writes for several marketing blogs including GoDaddy and WP Elevation, co-organizes the Sacramento WordPress Meetup group, speaks regularly at both virtual and live events across the country, and is excited to help bring Sacramento’s first WordCamp to life.
Jake Goldman
SPEAKER & SCHEDULE DIRECTOR
Jake Goldman is the President & Founder of 10up, a web agency focused on outstanding content management experiences, with full time designers, engineers, strategists, and systems experts. Jake bootstrapped 10up from a 1 man show to a leading force in the WordPress market with over 120 employees, and customers like ESPN, Microsoft, Google, TED, Dropbox, and AARP — to name just a few — in 4 years. He has been building websites since the mid 90s, and his analyses have been quoted on publications like Fast Company and c|net. He is a core contributor to WordPress, and maintains some of the highest rated plug-ins on the official repository; cumulatively, they have been downloaded nearly 1 million times. He’s also a proud web community volunteer: he co-organized the first WordCamp Boston in 2010 while living in Rhode Island, started the Providence WordPress Meetup in late 2010, rebooted the Sacramento WordPress Meetup in 2013, and is now proud to be co-organizing Sacramento’s first WordCamp.
Joe Boydston
FINANCE & SPONSOR DIRECTOR
Joe “runs” WordPress.com. Well, not the whole thing. But he works for Automattic, the company who does :) When he’s not running super long distances to visit WordCamps, he helps businesses make the most of their WordPress.com sites. He blogs about his running adventures at crazyrunningguy.com and is co-organizer of the Sacramento WordPress Meetup group.
Heather Hogan
ENTERTAINMENT DIRECTOR
Through empathy and education, Heather demystifies technology and usability, helping organizations define, strategize,and build online communications that delight. Clients rely on her to do a quality job because she has done it so many times for clients like the City of Rocklin, Land Home Financial Services, AARP, and the Sacramento Public Library.
Emily Buonauro
CATERING DIRECTOR
I am a full time student, a part time worker, and a full time cat mom. I love coffee, burritos, and bright colored highlighters. I am currently attending The Art Institute of California — Sacramento as a Graphic & Web Design major. Although I have only recently begun working with WordPress, I love it as a content management system. The interface is easy to use for both the developer and the client, and bridging that gap is really important.
Jen Meyer
FACILITIES DIRECTOR
Jen Meyer is a third year Graphic and Web Design student at The Art Institute of California, Sacramento. She is also the co-president of the Graphic and Web Design Club at AI. Jen has several years of experience in information technology and project management, and spent time living overseas while serving in the U.S. Air Force. When not working on homework, or various other projects, you can find her either camping at the beach, reading a good book, or re-watching old episodes of The X-Files. Jen is excited to be part of Sacramento’s first WordCamp, and looks forward to many more opportunities to get involved with the local design community.
I’ve been nothing short of impressed with all the communication and anticipation-building. You guys have been doing an amazing job so far. Thank you! :)
Thank you so Much Robby! We’re thrilled BeaverBuilder is a sponsor and are looking forward to seeing you at the event this weekend :)