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Rick Radko
Rick Radko is a WordPress developer/designer and tech trainer. He has been creating web sites and apps since 1996, and has worked with WordPress since 2008. Rick began teaching tech topics to others when he was elected leader of the Southern Ontario AutoCAD Practitioners in 1988. He is as comfortable talking to beginners in plain English as he is talking geek speak to developers. Rick is one of the founders, and continues to be one of organizers of the Ottawa WordPress Meetup. Rick lead the launch of the inaugural WordCamp Ottawa 2013 and WordCamp Ottawa 2014.
He is the founder and lead developer/designer at R-Cubed Design Forge, http://r3df.com, where he develops custom: plugins (several are in the wordpress.org repo), themes and multilingual web sites. @r3designforge
Shawn Hooper
Shawn has been a web developer since the early days of the web, with experience developing sites for private, public and non-profit sectors. He is now the Chief Technology Officer at Actionable.co, where, in addition to other duties, he manages several sites built with WordPress. At night and on the weekends, he’s a WordPress Core Contributor and plugin author. He’s also spoken at WordCamps and Meetups in Canada, the United States and Australia.
Shawn blogs about WordPress and other technology things at ShawnHooper.ca and as part of The WP Crowd. You can follow him on Twitter as @shawnhooper.
Stephanie Fournier
Stephanie knows, first-hand, why modern website projects need to adopt a “mobile-first” approach, and this has become even more relevant in a product ecosystem where a majority of users are now only seeing your website on their device.
For a while now, Stephanie has been making websites look good on every platform with a focus on the user experience and a passion for aesthetics. As an avid gamer, climber, and archery enthusiast, Stephanie thrives on challenge and on using lateral thinking to devise creative solutions to complex problems.
Jean-Francois Arseneault
Jean-François is Co-Founder of SatelliteWP (a WordPress maintenance server), has been using WP for 14 years, participates as speaker / volunteer at WordCamp Montreal since 2010 and since 2018, supervises the translation of WordPress, Beaver Builder and WP Rocket in “Français du Canada”. In his spare time, he’s preparing for his marathon… of 10km, and improves his knowledge of sailing techniques on his sailboat.
Ron Rennick
Ron helped bring WordPress multi-site into WordPress core. Over the last 13 years he has made regular contributions to the WordPress community – sometimes working full time on those contributions.
Ron qualified with honours in Computer Programming Technology from New Brunswick Community College – but he also puts his knowledge down to life long learning. Ron lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, with Andrea, his partner and best friend of 30 years.
Christie Witt
Christie Witt is the lead designer for the Canadian Physiotherapy Association in Ottawa. She’s been a member of the WordCamp Ottawa organizing team since 2017. She has spoken at WordCamp Toronto, WordCamp Ottawa and the WordPress Ottawa Meetup. She’s passionate about goal-oriented design, user-experience design, and has deployed corporate re-brands across both print and digital platforms.
Outside of technology and design, Christie enjoys travelling, fine arts, and performing stand-up comedy in Ottawa. Follow her on instagram @creativechristabelle.
Paul Thompson
Often called a geek translator by his clients, Paul specialises in helping website owners and creators transform the buzzwords of web marketing into business results for bloggers and small/medium businesses as well as enterprise clients.
As an SEO and web marketing consultant at Buzzwords to Business https://www.buzzwordstobusiness.com, Thompson focuses on optimising existing sites into powerful marketing platforms. Using his extensive expertise in technical SEO as a basis, he incorporates audits, custom analytics, content marketing, conversion optimisation, email marketing, and paid search (ah, the buzzwords!), depending on the client’s needs. Thompson also provides one-on-one coaching and training in these areas.
He’s been managing and optimising sites for over 15 years, including stints managing the websites and web marketing programs for Banff Lake Louise Tourism and Travel Alberta, and has been working with WordPress for over a decade now. He’s recently moved from the mountains of the west to the Ottawa Valley. When he’s not at the keyboard, he’s likely on his bike or cross-country skis, or wandering around with his camera and tripod over his shoulder.
Michael Bontyes
Michael started building websites with WordPress 10 years ago. Since then, many things change in the CMS but one remains the same: his enthusiasm to learn and discover new ways to make the web better, especially for end users and content managers.
Today, Michael is a technical lead for a digital agency where he contributes to enthralling projects with teams in Europe, Asia, and North America. You can also find him in WordCamps, at a workshop or at the happiness bar. More than ever, he is convinced that technology can help to bring people together and support great initiatives.
Jonathan Perlman
Jonathan Perlman is an experienced web developer working for Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec. Having 15+ years of experience in web development, he builds custom solutions for the educational institution.
Jonathan is also an instructor for Dawson College’s Centre for Training and Development specializing website and database technologies such as HTML & CSS, PHP and WordPress along with SQL.
Shanta R. Nathwani
Shanta has spoken at more than 30 WordCamps, mostly in beginner and content architecture talks. She was a professor in Web Design and Development at Sheridan College for 5 years before joining Weever Apps Inc. in Hamilton, Ontario a year ago as the Customer Service Co-ordinator. She is now the Quality Assurance Supervisor, overseeing the QA Department.
She blogs at shanta.ca and can be found on Twitter @ShantaDotCa
Cami Kaos
Cami lives, works, and parents in the rainy city of Portland, Oregon. She’s had a love of WordPress and WordCamps since the last century, when she happened to stumble upon the first WordCamp Portland. Since 2013, she has worked at Automattic, as a community organizer for the WordPress open source project. In that role, she gets to work with WordCamps and their organizers from around the world, every day. She continues to write on an irregular basis at camikaos.com where she explores concepts from the plight of modern parents to mental health to marveling at the seemingly mundane. Cami is active on a number of social platforms but can be most readily found as @camikaos on Twitter.
Tricia Isham
Tricia is a web designer who creates sites for small service-based businesses. She believes every business deserves a strategic, professional-looking website, not just a pretty one. She goes the extra mile to help business owners get online and loves to come alongside others and help them learn WordPress.
Michael Benoit
Michael Benoit is a migrations specialist at Rebel.com, a hosting company and domain name registrar, where he crushes other hosting companies’ dreams by seamlessly migrating their customers’ sites. Mike’s approach is full concept, providing top quality support and recommending a variety of hosting platform solutions for both websites and email.
In his down time, Mike dives into a variety of projects: 3D printing and technical design; construction of his stand-up desk; and supporting the free Sidewalk Astronomy initiative with his custom, handmade telescope. Most importantly, he’s also the proud papa of rescue cat Purrious George.
Matt Graham
Matt is a jack of all technical trades – development, devops, and he has a wire for pretty much anything. His day-to-day includes working on a start-up, troubleshooting WordPress sites and managing more servers than he thought he ever would. Helping people is what gets him up in the morning, and he uses his knowledge to help others reach their technology-related goals.
Jamie Oastler
Jamie is one who believes there will be time to rest when you’re dead. He’s a developer for Gravity Flow, one of the best business process management plugins available for WordPress. He is also the lead PHP/WordPress developer at Innovapost and an important DevOps resource for the Canada Post Group of Companies. His experiences across the WordPress solution stack range from front-end designer, plugin developer, solution architect to devops resource. All layered on top of a strong foundation built through his Bachelor of Commerce degree at Carleton University – where the K stands for Quality.
Ari Black
Ari Black is Content Circus Ringmaster at WebMarketers, a boutique digital marketing agency based in Ottawa. He comes from an old school, Mad-Men-esque advertising background, having made the leap to digital to avoid becoming a dinosaur. He’s still admittedly an old man (relatively speaking) playing a young person’s game, but welcomes the challenge and embraces constant learning & adapting. When Ari isn’t working on content marketing, you can find him on stage doing stand-up comedy or giving motivational speeches.
Meagan Hanes
Meagan Hanes is the Technical Project Manager for Maintainn at WebDevStudios. She is responsible for managing ongoing development across a wide range of projects and ensuring Maintainn clients receive top-quality support and communication. Her experience in relating client needs and developer technicalities in order to produce elegant solutions has been valued by clients and partners alike throughout her 15+ year career.
She has been on the WordCamp Ottawa organizing team since 2014 and was Lead Organizer for the 2016 and 2017 events. You can often find her volunteering, speaking at or mentoring a WordCamp across Canada and the United States. Some of her talks are available to watch online. She has taught and volunteered with Canada Learning Code, as well as providing private WordPress instruction and instructor support.
When not on a computer, Meagan enjoys a variety of visual artistic crafts, including painting and embroidery, and is on an eternal quest to complete her Pokedex. Meagan resides in her hometown of Ottawa, Canada.
Frederic Sune
I am a Creative Multipreneur – a person with multiple interests and talents who is happiest and most fulfilled when developing multiple profit centers and pursuing multiple careers. I am also the CEO of WP Expert, a web agency that builds websites only using WordPress. I love helping entrepreneurs & working on multiple projects at the same time! I have been using WordPress since 2008 which was Version 2.5.
Felice Miranda
*Recipient of the Mayor’s Community Builder Award for being on the United Way Speakers Bureau.
* Advocate for people with intellectual disabilities and mental health
*Inspirational speaker
*Award winning Real Estate Agent for the past 20 years
*Stand-Up Comedian
*Producer of a monthly Stand-Up Comedy show, raising over $3000 for charity in the last 5 years.
*Award winning parent. (Well in my own mind).
*Award winning landlord…. if there was an award for that!
* Award winning Avon Lady
*I love art, painting, baking, travel, my cabin in the woods, my kids & my grandkids, speaking to inspire and help others
Amy Lynch
Amy Lynch is a writer and freelancer focused on travel, international family life, creativity and flexible work. She is founder of ‘Babies, Business + Breakfast’, a community for parents who want to invest in themselves alongside their loved ones. As a former expat, she currently lives in Ottawa with her young international family, where she advises corporates and individuals on creating child-friendly business spaces and experiences.
Chris Wiegman
Chris is an Senior Software Engineer at WP Engine who has been working with WordPress since 2008. He built one of the largest security plugins on WordPress.org, WordPress plugins and themes, Google Chrome extensions, WordPress development environments and solutions for sites large and small. When not writing code, Chris, a teacher at heart, has presented sessions, workshops and keynote addresses at numerous WordCamps and other conferences as well as taught computer security for St. Edward’s University plus other university courses ranging from computers to aviation.
Etienne Belanger
Étienne Bélanger is a full-stack developer working @ District Web. He love WordPress and been working with it for more then 10 years. He has built custom themes, plugins, extensions of plugins. His experience range from small sites to large ecommerce multisites ecosystem. He loves learning new things everday. From WordPress to nodejs, from backend to frontend, he enjoy exploring new ways of making the web.
Mike Demo
Former MousePlanet MouseStation Podcast co-host Mike “Demo” Demopoulos is a lover of open source first, specific tools later. Because of this, he speaks at Ignite! Conferences, Meetups, WordCamps, Joomla! Events, and more. Mike volunteers with The Joomla! Project as the former treasurer of Open Source Matters (the not for profit organization for Joomla!) as well as serving on the Joomla! board.
Mike Demopoulos has spoken on various open source topics including WordPress and Joomla! in addition to marketing related talks which include A/B testing content.
Before coming to BoldGrid as a community evangelist, Mike spent years building a strong client base in the financial and insurance industries. He believes in sharing his business acumen and marketing insight as it fits within his main goal of building a community.
When he’s not spending time with his wife Kayla, you may find Demo at a Disney Theme park, collecting artwork, or hanging out with his dog B’Elanna.
Be sure to say hi to Mike Demopoulos on Twitter at @MPMike.
Paul Bearne
Senior WordPress Full Stack Developer (Paul & Gina Bearne) and Partner/Developer at Matador Software, LLC
Amy Young
WordPress Geek
Indie Author
Disability/accessibility advocate (visually/physically impaired)
Sometimes programmer
Kevin Andrews
I am a User Experience Developer with 5+ years of experience working in the web development industry. I currently work for a Westboro based web design/development agency called Industrial and have worked with them for nearly my entire career. I have worked with many different tech stacks but I focus primarily on WordPress and Drupal based projects.
I have a passion for clean code and developing for inclusivity. This means following accessibility standards set by WCAG 2.0 and optimizing code to be accessed from any device.
Devon Kunkel
Devon has an educational background in Interactive Multimedia from Algonquin College. Throughout his time at Algonquin he was valued as a quick learner that enabled him to focus on both the creative and technical sides of web development. Being involved from the beginning of a project right through to the completion of a website makes Devon an integral part of any development team.
While working at Alphabet®, Devon has analyzed and improved our online infrastructure. He also leads our development department and is responsible for all of our online production. Some examples of this work include database driven websites, flash videos and working within content management systems.
Previous to working with Alphabet®, Devon succeeded in developing and redesigning over hundreds of websites for many renowned companies around the world. He most notably has worked with Dell, NBC, Microsoft, Intel, Telus, Ottawa Senators, NBA, GMAC, and Dodge, among others.
Remy Perona
I’m the lead developer of WP Rocket, a premium caching plugin installed on more than 750 000 websites.
I’m also a regular speaker at WordCamps in Canada and Europe.
Michelle Ames
Michelle completed her MBA in Marketing, E-Commerce and Information Systems from the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business. She has over twenty years of experience in higher education; ten years owning a web design and marketing company; and currently serves as the Head of Customer Success for Impress.org (developers of GiveWP.com and WPBusinessReviews.com).
Michelle is a veteran of public speaking. She’s been an instructor for a wide variety of topics including Using Quantitative Data Analysis Software, Meditative Drawing, Intro to WordPress, and Marketing for Massage Therapy. Michelle speaks at conferences all over North America. You can find many of them recorded on WordPress.tv including “Little Things That Make a Big Difference” and “Hidden Features of WordPress Revealed,” as well as panel discussions on ethics, marketing, page builders, and women in technology.
Michelle is the author “A Good Firm Handshake (and other essential business tips)” available on Amazon.com.
Say hi to Michelle on Twitter at @michelleames and check out her website at worksbymichelle.com.
Miriam Goldman
Miriam is the lead developer at Pondstone Digital Marketing. She started playing around with WordPress for personal projects in 2009, and for professional projects two years later. Miriam speaks at various WordCamps across North America, and is also a mentor and instructor for Ottawa’s chapter of Canada Learning Code. She has been a member of the WordCamp Ottawa organizing team since 2017.
Outside of her web development life, she is an 3rd degree black belt, plays clarinet with the Barrhaven Community Concert Band, and also competes in the pro-am categories in international latin ballroom dance.
You can connect with her via Twitter at @mirigoldman or Instagram at @dancingsensei.