Speakers

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Mason Arnold

Front-end developer at Ignitro working primarily in WordPress and providing accessibility solutions for clients.  I have helped clients all over the size spectrum gain and or maintain their digital footprint on the web and reach their goals through custom features, integrations and semantic code.

Joe Querin

Joe has been a web designer/developer since 1998.

Joe blends his creative side and knowledge of Graphic Design with his problem-solving skills and self-taught programming skills to build and support websites. Joe also has designed, implemented and maintained a variety of server platforms for websites over the years.

When Joe is not manipulating pixels into works of art, or stringing variables and methods together to bend WordPress or any other website technology to his will, he enjoys spending time with his two daughters and wife of 19 years. In his free time, Joe enjoys cooking/grilling, woodworking, video games and 3D modeling.

Michelle Ames

Michelle Ames Headshot

Michelle knows firsthand the power that giving has on communities. She has 20 years of experience in higher education, 10 years of owning a web design and marketing company, and now serves as the Head of Customer Success for GiveWP.com and WPBusinessReviews.com.

In her years working with WordPress, she’s also set aside time to mentor, create WordPress classes, and organize Meetups, Hackathons and WordCamps.

She has a variety of experience teaching and speaking about topics including Using Quantitative Data Analysis Software, Meditative Drawing, Intro to WordPress, and Marketing for Massage Therapy. You can find many of them recorded on WordPress.tv including “Little Things That Make a Big Difference,” “Hidden Features of WordPress Revealed,” and “Use Your WordPress Powers for Good,” as well as panel discussions on WordPress, marketing, and women in technology.

As important as teaching is to Michelle, she says learning is just as essential to embracing the WordPress community.

“I love the WordPress/WordCamp audience because everyone is there to learn from one another. Every person (from beginner to advanced developer) has something to share and something to learn. I am constantly inspired by how encouraging the community is to one another.”

Michelle is the author of “A Good Firm Handshake and Other Essential Business Tips” available on Amazon.com. She holds a BA in Religion and Philosophy (Roberts Wesleyan College) and an MBA in Marketing, E-Commerce, and Information Technology Management (Simon School, University of Rochester).

Michelle loves attending conferences, exploring photography, serving on non-profit boards, and mentoring people in her local community. Follow Michelle on Twitter and Instagram at @michelleames and check out her thoughts about life on thedailybedhead.com.



Sandro Galindo

Sandro Galindo is a digital marketer focusing on search engine marketing & optimization. He just celebrated his 12th Twitterversary and was named by WKYC in 2009 as one of the 10 Most Interesting Twitterers in NE Ohio (though he’s pretty sure his mom stuffed the ballot). He started in digital marketing by handling social media marketing for small businesses and eventually expanded into event marketing and finally search. He is the co-host of the Liz & Sandro Marketing Podcast now in its 4th year, founder of SouperBowl CLE, a soup crawl and competition and co-founder of a nachos & margarita festival coming later this year.

Bill Rice

Bill Rice is the Founder/CEO of Kaleidico, a digital agency focused on lead generation. Bill regularly writes and speaks about designing lead generation systems and platforms that deliver consistent sales growth.

Kaleidico’s specialty practice areas include Banking (Lending & Wealth Management), Legal (Personal Injury & Mergers and Acquisitions), Emerging Technology, and Senior Living.

Abby Buzon

Abby (Armstrong-Lehman) Buzon began working in website administration in 2010 as part of her role as a 1-person marketing department. With a few years of WordPress experience and a knack for marketing technologies, she branched out on her own and began The Helpful Marketer in 2017.

Abby trains small business owners on how to use marketing technologies and guides them through the bigger picture of improving their online presence, local visibility, and customer retention.  Because the presence of a solid website is the prerequisite to any marketing strategy, The Helpful Marketer is more often The Helpful Website Designer, but it doesn’t quite have the same ring.  This suits her just fine though, as she would much rather write a stylesheet than a social media post any day.

A Northeast Ohio native, Abby graduated from Baldwin-Wallace and now lives near Lodi with her husband and 4-year-old son.  She enjoys nature, gardening, camping, being in the woods, painting, studying sociology, political activism, coffee (black), and wine (white).

You can contact Abby at hello@thehelpfulmarketer.com or learn more about The Helpful Marketer at https://thehelpfulmarketer.com

John Aron

Aronetics prefers preemptive hack analysis versus the hacked rescue of WordPress sites.

David Jackson

Dave Jackson is an award-winning Hall of Fame podcaster who has been podcasting since 2005.
He is a featured and keynote speaker at many events but is best known for founding the School of Podcasting and help hundreds of podcasters launch successful podcasts

His School of Podcasting show has over 2 Million downloads. His position at Libsyn.com (a podcast hosting companies) enables him to help more podcasters than any other human on the planet.

For more information visit schoolofpodcasting.com

Rory Heaney

Rory Heaney has led and created successful, tailored application and website solutions for top brands, including Betsy Farms and PetAction Plus as well as for celebrity personalities such as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Emily Henderson.

As the Senior Front End Developer for Cie Digital Labs, Rory steers the ideation/execution of web applications as well as mobile and portal development for clients across industries, including Pilot Flying J and Nitto Tire.

He’s proficient in CSS, CSS3, HTML, HTML5, JavaScript, jQeury, Vue, and PHP languages, and has successfully built more than 500 websites over the past eight years.

WordPress rules, I’m out!!

Stoney deGeyter

TL;DR: Writer, speaker, digital marketer, dad, husband, sci-fi geek, 63% robot.

Graduating high school at the age of 16, Stoney has always had an entrepreneur spirit. In 1998 he founded Pole Position Marketing, one of the longest-running digital marketing agencies before being acquired by The Karcher Group in 2019. Stoney authored The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period! which is the perfect desk-reference for digital marketers and managers of all skill levels. He’s also been published on Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, Search Engine Journal, as well as having written thousands of blog posts and dozens of ebooks. Over the past twenty-plus years, Stoney has become a leader in the digital marketing space, helping hundreds of businesses grow their online authority through strategic and effective digital marketing strategies.

And if that’s not enough, Stoney frequently teaches digital marketing at conferences nationwide, including PubCon, Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Affiliate Summit, and can also be hired to provide in-house training to help your in-house digital marketing team.

You can reach Stoney at stoney@tkg.com or 330-493-5756 to request him to speak at your conference, seminar or workshop.

Nathan Ingram

Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress and freelance business development topics via live webinar. He is also the host of the WP Business Podcast, which offers news, tools, and insights for people who build websites for clients using WordPress.

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.

You can learn more about Nathan at https://nathaningram.com.

Michael Temple

I have been a full-time digital marketing consultant, web designer, copywriter, and professional speaker for 15 years. I work with a variety of different companies and industries from medical to manufacturing. In my free time, I enjoy reading and outdoor activities such as hiking and kayaking.

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 the 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.

Tim McKenna

Tim McKenna is a design professional with 13 years of experience creating meaningful products and services. He is the Director of Experience Design at Pennsylvania Interactive, part of NIC Inc, where he leads a team of designers and developers to creating products and services for State Government.

William Bergmann

I am a 38-year old semi-pro WordPress user who has been on many sides of the table- WordPress developer, WordPress user as a content creator, as a Project Manager overseeing WordPress development… I am passionate about helping people leverage technology to maximize their potential, and about using WordPress as a means to democratize publishing/human expression.

Paul Oyler

Paul Oyler, the owner of Oyler Creative, builds and manages websites for small businesses, churches, organizations, and racetracks, as well as artists and bloggers.

Public speaking is important to Paul because he believes in educating others. He’s spoken on why people should care about the WordPress community, the necessity of having an emergency readiness plan, and has appeared on several podcasts.

When Paul isn’t working with clients, you can find him spending quality time with his family, reading, enjoying and listening to music, or rooting for the Buffalo Bills and Sabres, as well as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins.

Say hi to him on Twitter at @PappyOyler and check out his website at oylercreative.com.

Seth Alling

Seth Alling is a Detroit-based developer turned designer turned developer, who has been working with WordPress since 2009 and currently works as a Senior Software Engineer for Mediavine. When he’s not developing (or designing), you can find him playing soccer, running, or spending time with his wife and kids.

Angela Bergmann

Angela Bergmann is the Lead SEO Strategist at Advance Local. She has 15+ years of experience in digital marketing, with a specific focus on SEO. She views a win based on conversion and organic growth, not increasing keyword rankings. Beyond SEO she is passionate about advocacy work, gaming, dogs, WordPress, and accessibility.

Jeremy Ward

A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Jeremy first got his start in web development as a hobby, when he learned to build static websites for his bands and friends. This part-time curiosity blossomed into interests in database queries and server-side languages, and by 2013, he began a full-time career in computer programming.

Today, Jeremy works as a Senior Backend Engineer at WebDevStudios, where he’s passionate about software architecture, modular design, sussing out acceptance criteria for website features, and promoting the merits of the hottest new board games.

Thomas Cottrill

Owner and Founder of Ignitro, a mostly WordPress based development firm in Canton, OH, I’m passionate about WordPress from all angles. I love the community that rises around it, I like the technology that it’s built upon, and I love the content it can deliver and the people it can empower.

Rene Morozowich

Rene is a Pittsburgh-based WordPress freelancer working with agencies and small businesses to deliver amazing websites. She loves traveling, reading, talking about money and roller skating.

Eric Malcolm

I develop object-oriented clean front-end code and lead accessibility efforts on agile development teams.

As a front-end developer I help architect solutions while creating usable, human-friendly and accessible websites, interfaces, and apps.

George Mount

George is a freelance data analyst, getting his start in WordPress while blogging away his triumphs and frustrations with Microsoft Excel. While the blog has been quieter as of late at georgejmount.com, he continues to write there about business analytics and innovation. George is passionate about helping people manage their data so they can think more creatively.

Josh Gellock

Josh is the SEO and Content Strategist at Expander Digital, an SEO studio he founded in 2014. He helps other businesses drive website traffic from organic search. When he’s not meeting with clients, you can find Josh fishing, hiking, or biking on trails.

Lee Drozak

Lee Drozak is a web strategist who knows WordPress design and development, and she loves to share her knowledge with other savvy creative and service providers. Because of her knowledge of design, development, and marketing, she can give her clients a different perspective on creating a web experience and find solutions that work for their business goals. As a digital adventure guide, Lee applies out of the box thinking to find answers and tools for the individual business owner, not a cookie cutter roadmap that doesn’t apply to them. You can find more about Lee in her digital space at leedrozak.com.

Steve Grunwell

Steve Grunwell is a Senior Software Engineer at Liquid Web, working primarily on the Managed WordPress and WooCommerce platforms. Specializing in WordPress and web application development, he has a passion for teaching and contributing back to the development community through speaking, blogging, and open-source work.

When he’s not writing tests or finding new ways to automate the world around him, Steve is off spending time with his family, enjoying a fine cup of coffee, playing guitar, or otherwise getting away from the keyboard.

WordCamp Kent 2019 is over. Check out the next edition!