Tessa Kriesel
Agency and Community Engineer at Pantheon and Founder of Coders of TMRW, Tessa has been a web developer for over 10 years. She enjoys front-end development but also loves to build sites from start to finish. She started in Joomla back when it was founded and worked her way into WordPress and Drupal about 7 years ago. She enjoys teaching others to code as well as speaking at conferences and youth events. Tessa is a northern Minnesota native, but now lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and four children — three boys and a baby girl. She loves dogs and enjoys helping local organizations rescue dogs in her free time.
WordCamp Session Title
Configuration Management: Site Configuration in Code
Why Is This Important?
I submitted this talk because I think it is an awesome topic to cover and somehow people are unaware of the true power behind it. I struggle with moving databases around and when I struggle I mean that I hate doing it. So if we can move much of that into code, then I want to share that knowledge with the entire WordPress community!
How Did You Discover WordPress?
I first discovered WordPress because I was building Joomla sites for an agency and they asked me to dig into a WordPress site. I initially fell in love with the Admin UI, compared to Joomla (at the time) it was absolutely fantastic. I eventually started taking on more WordPress projects and soon realized that I loved how easy it was to explain WordPress to others as well as customize it to my needs.
How Do You Use WordPress?
The areas I use WordPress the most is from a web development stand-point. Up until my role with Pantheon, I strictly built websites and usually in WordPress. Now days, I strive to learn the latest developer techniques, utilizing WordPress as well as other open-source CMS platforms.
How Has WordPress Impacted You?
I feel like WordPress has a lot to do with my success and overall career choices. I feel like open source CMS’s have a lot to do with it in general. After building my first Joomla site, a Guitar Hero community, I instantly fell in love with web development and databases. Yep, I’m nerdy, I love organized data. I was amazed with the fact that I could write code and others could actually make changes to the content. I think that if it wasn’t for WordPress, I might not enjoy web development as much as I do today.
What Do You Do When Not Working?
I really love anything outdoors, like camping, fishing, hunting and archery. Minnesota summers are pretty fantastic and include lots of swimming, rollerblading and biking. I also love snow and having snowball fights with my kids. I am married and have three children — two boys and a toddler girl. Outside of family and hobbies, I really enjoy giving back and volunteering any chance I can. I volunteer with two local dog rescues as well as teach women to code through Girl Develop It classes and kids through Coders of TMRW.
What Is Your Favorite Candy?
Mamba’s.