Organizers

Mike is a freelance front-end web developer who enjoys building custom WordPress themes and plugins for clients of all sizes. Originally from the Boston area, Mike now lives in Northeast Minneapolis with his wife, toddler and two cats.

Michelle is an independent graphic designer and frontend developer in Minneapolis. Prior to beginning her career, she studied Visual Communications, with minors in Psychology and Sociology. As her work progressed, she also branched into front-end development and user experience design to round our her skillset. This combination of disciplines led her to adopt a strategy-based approach to design, focused on solving tangible problems and achieving real goals based on how people think.

She loves the open source community, and when she is not working on projects she speaks/volunteers/organizes at events and workshops around the country. Her passions are communication and empowerment, and she believes in the power of “Why?”

Reid Peifer is a co-owner of Modern Tribe, a ridiculously awesome fully distributed digital agency specializing in enterprise WordPress projects. He’s designed, coded, and managed websites of all imaginable makes and sizes, as well as a thriving premium plugin business (Events Calendar PRO), all on top of WordPress.

Drew leads the Developer Relations team at Pantheon. He gets to work with developers all over the world, sharing best practices and helping us all get the most out of both Pantheon and the Open Source tools we all share, including WordPress.

Drew began working on the web in 1996. He started his own web firm in 2001 and joined Pantheon in 2015 when he sold their automated website backup product to Pantheon.

Drew has a broad range of other interests, has lived and worked in Asia, Europe and North America and speaks several languages. He holds a liberal arts degree from St. Olaf College.

All in. Go-getter. Laughs the loudest. Katie excels at developing comprehensive solutions through strategy, design and messaging that cuts through the clutter and connects with target audiences as the founder and creative brand strategist at Spark27 Creative. Critical design thinking and dedication to developing high-quality strong concepts have earned her 16 ADDY awards for design. Katie’s enthusiasm for her work is contagious, her clients have noted creative talents and outcomes, personality and easy-going nature, and general feeling that she is an extension of staff as just a few reasons why they love to work with her. Plus, as an adjunct design instructor for over six years, she will naturally coach you through any process.

Jessi’s love for website development started back in 1993, when at the age of 12 she learned HTML and secured her first dot-com. Remember Geocities, black backgrounds, lime green text, and the running dog .gif? Man, those were the days…

Jessi started Iceberg Web Design in 2005, and grew the business from two employees in her basement to a full staff of 7 in less than two years.

Jessi lives in Ramsey, Minnesota with her husband and two young boys. She enjoys organic gardening, making candles every fall, and vegan cooking.

Julie has been involved with the WordPress community since 2013 and has attended dozens of WordCamps. She also works with the WordPress.org Training Team. While previously a freelance front-end developer, Julie currently does customer support for CoSchedule and lives in Fargo, North Dakota with her significant other Rob and her two dogs. If you’re looking for her, she can be found riding her Harley or frequenting dive bars.

Developer Advocate at Pantheon, 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 enjoys teaching others to code, mentoring junior developers and speaking at conferences and youth events. She is an instructor and retired Chapter Leader for Girl Develop It Minneapolis, WordCamp Minneapolis Organizer and founder of Outspoken Women. Tessa is a northern Minnesota native, but now lives in the Twin Cities. She loves dogs and enjoys helping local organizations rescue dogs in her free time.