It’s that time!
The speakers are confirmed for WordCamp Sacramento and we’re so excited to begin the announcements in no particular order.
Today we’re sharing the first group of talented WordPressers who will be leading sessions in the two mixed tracks of sessions for WordCamp Sacramento 2018, happening at the Sacramento Convention Center September 15-16, 2018.
Meet our first eight speakers below:
Chris Lema
Chris Lema has been building eCommerce sites since 1997, back when it would take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, and still didn’t work perfectly. Today he’s the VP of Products at Liquid Web, where he’s designed and launched a new platform dedicated to WooCommerce stores.
Tessa Kriesel
Teaching and mentorship come naturally to dog-lover and Developer Outreach Manager at Pantheon, Tessa Kriesel. She wears many hats in her life — all with sass and finesse — including instructor for Girl Develop It, lead organizer for WordCamp Minneapolis, and founder of Outspoken Women and Coders of TMRW.
Tessa has spoken on many topics including helping beginners with workflow, mentorship, teaching on configuration management, and shedding light on continuous integration and deployment. She has also been a panelist on a wide range of topics at Conferences and Meetups.
When Tessa isn’t working on her development chops or mentoring junior developers, she is using her extroverted super hero skills to make people feel welcome and included at whatever event she attends.
Cristina Robinson
Cristina Robinson is a Sacramento-based designer and blogger with over 10 years of experience. Her passion for web design began in high school where she created layouts on LiveJournal, web pages on Yahoo! Geocities and managed her high school’s website. She’s been growing her skills ever since teaching herself WordPress, PHP, LESS, Sass, and design. She graduated with her Bachelor of Science degree in Web Design and Interactive Media from The Art Institute of California – Sacramento in 2012, has worked for two local web agencies, and freelanced for a variety of local clients. Cristina is currently the UI/UX Designer at Sacramento digital marketing agency Three29 and can be found blogging at TheLovelyGeek.com.
Andrew Taylor
Andrew currently works for Pantheon as a Developer Programs Engineer providing consulting ro their agency partners around complex workflows and automation. He also enjoys giving back to the WordPress community through the hosting group, plugin development and speaking at WordCamps. As a former web developer, Andrew spent his time on large scale projects for clients such as AMC Networks, Frito Lay, National Van Lines and more. With over 10 years of web development experience, specializing in WordPress, he is a seasoned veteran.
Kathy Zant
Kathy Zant is a seasoned digital executive with over 20 years of web development experience for companies large and small. She’s been using WordPress for over a decade. In the last two years, she’s been a security analyst for Wordfence, developing services for WordPress users to better understand and manage their site security. She currently lives at the base of Mount Shasta in far northern California.
Matt Vanderpol
Matt Vanderpol is a full stack developer with a primary focus on WordPress including custom theme/plugin development and performance review and improvement. With over 20 years as a developer in the industry, he has a strong focus on performance and process — always seeking new and better ways to accomplish a task both for the benefit of the designer/developer and for users or visitors. Matt lives in Nevada City, CA in a home that he and his wife designed and built. He works remotely from that home while enjoying a thriving family life with his wife and their 6 kids.
Ben Byrne
Ben Byrne is a co-founder of Cornershop Creative. He’s been designing on the web professionally for nearly 20 years, but he’s also been a developer for almost as long, building up extensive experience with languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP, and putting them to good use implementing his designs on several CMS platforms, including WordPress and Drupal. In addition to his own work, Ben oversees the design and development the rest of the Cornershop team does, ensuring it’s up to our high standards. He enjoys sharing his knowledge, and has presented to groups of varying sizes on topics like the difference between print and web design, web typography, various aspects of WordPress, and front-end performance. Ben lives in beautiful Santa Rosa, CA.
Jamie Schmid
Jamie Schmid has a particular passion for creating excellent content experiences. Originally from Milwaukee, WI, she has been working as a WordPress freelancer and consultant since 2012, regularly taking sites from conception through a well-managed build process that encourages communication, planning, and smart use of content. She has a background in Information Architecture and Content Strategy and a big ol’ enthusiasm for all things WordPress. Now living in Portland, OR, Jamie is a Community Evangelist for SiteLock, traveling the country and helping build awareness of website security best practices and solutions.