WordCamp Kent

WordCamp Northeast Ohio is excited to announced our second set of confirmed speakers!

Kathy Drewien

Best known for teaching beginners how to use WordPress in the Meetup she has facilitated since 2011, (and self-proclaimed WordCamp Queen of Registration for 6 years), Kathy is the Executive Producer of Kathy Drewien & Company, a web development firm offering WordPress services for creatives, bloggers, consultants, and coaches with bold dreams. Kathy is a professionally trained listener skilled in helping people and their businesses grow. And, she loves to talk! You can find her on Twitter and Slack channels for the make.wordpress.org Community and Training teams.

Hilary Fosdal

Hilary Fosdal is the owner of Red Phone Studio, a design and development company based in Chicago. She started building websites while working in the broadcast television industry. While still a news junkie, she loves to talk shop about all things digital. In her spare time, she seeks outdoor adventures that involve mostly hiking and running.

Ben Cool

Ben Cool is the Application Optimizer at A2 Hosting in Ann Arbor Michigan where he focuses on building “one click” tools for improving Web application performance.  Ben has over a decade of experience in front-end and back-end web development, a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Eastern Michigan University and A Graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence.  Ben is a Co-Organizer of WordCamp Ann Arbor and often speaks at and attends local WordPress Meetups in Michigan.  Ben has a passion for making the web faster and easier to use.

Sean Manion

Full-Time Freelance WordPress-er with design/development/marketing experience. I build websites for clients and teach them how to use them.

Kyle Maurer

Kyle is the co-founder of a Jackson, Michigan based firm called Real Big Marketing which specializes in using WordPress to solve complicated problems for businesses. He is also the author of and a contributor to dozens of WordPress plugins, is the co-organizer of the Jackson WP meetup, is a co-organizer of WordCamp Ann Arbor, plays in a band and is an aspiring beer snob.

Steve Grunwell

Steve Grunwell is a Senior Web Engineer and Project Lead at 10up, a World-class web design + development consultancy. Specializing in WordPress and application development he has worked with brands and organizations including TED, Microsoft, Xylem, Elmer’s, and Experience Columbus. Steve has released several plugins in the WordPress.org repositories, including one from the grounds of The White House during the first annual National Day of Civic Hacking in 2013. When he’s not writing software he enjoys hiking, music, and writing about writing software on his blog.

WordCamp Northeast Ohio is excited to announced our first group of confirmed speakers!

Ed Finkler

Ed Finkler started making web sites before browsers had frames. He does front-end and server-side work in Python, PHP, and JavaScript. He is the Lead Developer and Head of Developer Culture at Graph Story. He served as web lead and security researcher at The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) at Purdue University for 9 years. Along with Chris Hartjes, Ed is co-host of the Development Hell podcast. Ed’s current passion is raising mental health awareness in the tech community with his OSMIHelp.org. Ed writes at funkatron.com.

Brad Colbow

Brad Colbow is an independent UX/UI designer from Cleveland Ohio . Brad has built a reputation designing user interfaces and experiences for brands like Smucker’s, Rubbermaid, Starbucks, The Cleveland Clinic and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Design is fun, but Brad is probably best known for his comic strip “The Brads” which was published in .Net magazine and can be seen on his personal website along with his newer comic work. He’s also the co-organizer of the Cleveland Web Standards Association and the midwest’s premiere web design conference, Rustbelt Refresh.

Josh Pollock

Josh, is a WordPress plugin developer, educator and entrepreneur. He is the owner of CalderaWP, makers of Caldera Forms, and a co-founder of Ingot, the easiest A/B testing solution for WordPress. In addition he is a contributor to WordPress core, the WordPress REST API, and plugins by Foo Plugins, Postmatic, Pods, Aesop Interactive, WordImpress, GravityView and more. One of Josh’s favorite things to do is to share what he has learned about WordPress plugin development, business and community. He writes regularly for Torque Magazine and has contributed to many other WordPress tutorial sites. He is also the author of the book The Ultimate Guide to the WordPress REST API.

Jeff Matson

Jeff Matson is the documentation manager for Rocketgenius (Gravity Forms), developer and founder of NotifyBot, and overall super cool guy.  With his giant red beard, he’s hard to miss in a crowd, and will talk to you for hours about arcade games and music (someone at the WordCamp may or may not have a video of him dancing to Taylor Swift).

Melinda Helt

Melinda is a graphic designer who’s worked with for the past 5 years building WordPress websites for small businesses and non-profits.

Ross Johnson

Ross is the founder of 3.7 DESIGNS and SnapOrbital, a teacher at Michigan State University and the original lead organizer of WordCamp Ann Arbor. 3.7 DESIGNS is a web design and strategy firm focused on the WordPress platform. SnapOrbital is the premium WordPress plugin company behind Project Panorama, a project management and visualization plugin that helps business impress their clients, save time and bill more.

Kassey Sikora

Kassey is a Cleveland dwelling designer, marketer, and consultant. She works with small businesses in the Northeast Ohio area, talks too much about cats, and blogs about life. She is a lover of travel, glitter, technology, and brunch.

Interested in attending WordCamp Northeast Ohio for free? To make WCNEO amazing takes a lot of work, and we’d love it if you’d join us in making it great. We’re currently taking applications for volunteers.

A sample of the types of volunteers we’re looking for:

• Registration
• Greeter
• Video
• Photographer
• Cameras
• Room Runners
• Miscellaneous Prep
• Happiness Bar
• Emcee / Speaker Helper
• Video Post Production

Interested? Fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch! Please hold off on purchasing your ticket to the event. Once we finalize the volunteer list, those helping with get a coupon code for a free ticket.

Welcome to Leap Day- that magical day once every four years when February gets to take one step closer to being a real month! Hold on to your pants though, because Leap Day is about to get even more magical…

WordCamp Northeast Ohio is officially official! Not only that, but we are proud to announce our venue- Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center!

But wait- there’s more… In honor of Leap Day, we thought we would pay it forward and add a full second day to the wonderful WordCamp festivities. Make sure that you mark off not only June 11th off on your calendar, but the 12th as well!

Later in the week, we will be putting out the call for speakers, volunteers and sponsors, so stay tuned.

We’re happy to announce that WordCamp Northeast Ohio is officially on the calendar!

WordCamp Northeast Ohio will be June 11th and 12th at the Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center in Kent, Ohio.

Subscribe using the form in the sidebar to stay up to date on the most recent news. We’ll be keeping you posted on all the details over the coming months, including speaker submissions, ticket sales and more!