Adrian Esquivel
Adrian Esquivel is the founder and chief expert of TECKpert, a Coral Gables based full-service web technology provider. Possessing a background in computer engineering, Adrian has applied his expertise in web development, strategically developing small ideas into successful web campaigns. With a portfolio of many impressive internet marketing campaigns under his belt, Adrian has created superb websites for top-notch organizations, such as Uni K Wax Centers and ABC’s hit television series “Extreme Makeover Home Edition”, to name a few. Recently, he launched the Recycle IT Campaign where old, unused electronics are recycled with proceeds benefiting Miami Dade Public Schools. The tech veteran also co-founded Esolist, a revolutionary social media app, specifically designed for real estate buffs. Follow Adrian’s company @TECKpert on twitter.
Alex Gutierrez
Alex Gutierrez is the web marketing strategist for POP Creative, a full-service website design, search engine optimization (SEO) and online marketing firm located in Miami, FL.
With a primary focus on achieving measurable results, POP Creative integrates user-centric design with strategic web marketing programs to maximize their client’s bottom line.
Alex’s extensive experience in interactive digital media, Internet marketing & search engine optimization (SEO) has resulted in significant increases in web rankings, traffic and revenue for both POP Creative and hundreds of businesses throughout the US.
Andrea Graham
With over 15 years of experience creating custom hand-built websites, mostly on WordPress, Andi now leads a team of fantastic designers and developers at her agency, Big Sea Design & Development in St. Petersburg, Florida. Big Sea works with clients all over the country to create strategic digital communication strategies featuring award-winning design, custom WordPress wonders, complex PHP or Ruby-on-Rails applications, iOS and mobile apps and lots and lots of fun. Follow Big Sea Design & Development on Twitter at @BigSea.
Andy Stratton
Andy Stratton is a WordPress theme & plugin developer, coworker @sizeablespaces, and founder of Sizeable Interactive. He’s a growing JFDI padwan and prefers functional over “normal.” A lover of animals, art, music, film and peanut butter, Andy loves spending his time exercising, hiking and traveling. Follow Andy on Twitter @theandystratton.
Aubrey Sears
Aubrey Sears is the Lead Project Manager at Groupmind Media, a web strategy and design agency. Before transitioning into project management for web design and development companies, she spent over 9 years as a Project Manager at Motorola Inc., managing multi-site voice/data networks for state and local government organizations. Aubrey is also a certified personal trainer and enjoys golf , ballroom dancing and performing improv comedy. Follow on Twitter: @aubstruck
Ben Metcalfe
Blanca Stella Mejia
Blanca Stella Mejia is the owner of Vizred.com, an agency focused on delivering online digital solutions to the small to mid-sized businesses with expertise in mobile marketing, website development, local search, social media consulting and reputation management. Her business partner from the UK, Lee Hodson, has several WordPress plugins hosted in the WordPress repositories and creates WordPress based mobile optimized websites, E-commerce sites and Buddy Press sites.
Blanca has been blogging and using WordPress for four years and is the founder of MiCaminar.com which won the award of Best Inspirational Blogger by Latism.org, the largest Hispanic online community. She is co-director of the South Florida Chapter for Latism (Latinos In Social Media) and also blogs on Blancastella.com sharing many videos and pictures of the local South Florida Social Media activities.
Her motto is “Make Authentic Connections Through Social Media Platforms”, and her passion has been doing just that. She feels lucky to have met so many amazing and talented people in this way, many of whom she now considers true friends. Follow on Twitter @miamishines and @micaminar.
Brian Breslin
Brian is a long time WordPress user and developer. His company Infinimedia, has been building custom WordPress themes and plugins for 5 years. They currently produce a WordPress backup plugin called PressBackup which is used by thousands of blogs world wide. Brian is also heavily involved in the local technology community in South Florida. He blogs extensively about tech and community at http://brianbreslin.com. Follow him on Twitter @brianbreslin.
Chris Lauzon
David Tufts
David Tufts works full time as the web producer for a large international non-profit, RBC Ministries, and is a Co-founder at Rocketwood, a web development agency. He is an ambitious developer who is always looking for creative ways to implement the tools at hand in new and interesting ways. Over the last 4 years he has enjoyed deploying dozens of sites using WordPress ranging from personal blogs to large scale corporate websites. David’s latest WordPress project has been to develop an API for WordPress which can be found at kickpress.org. You can find David on his blog at davidscotttufts.com, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn.
Denise Jacobs
Denise Jacobs adores being an Author, Speaker, Web Design Trainer, and Creativity Evangelist. Most appreciated on Twitter as @denisejacobs for her “Great Resources”, Denise wrote The CSS Detective Guide, the premier book on troubleshooting CSS code; and co-authored InterAct with Web Standards. Her most recent articles encourage people to Banish Their Inner Critic and Reignite Their Creative Spark. Her latest project: to encourage more people from underrepresented groups to Rawk The Web.
Erick Hitter
Erick Hitter is a Boston-based web developer with Oomph, Inc. specializing in complex WordPress implementations for high-traffic sites, including several on the WordPress.com VIP platform. He is also responsible for the company’s BuddyPress projects and is a core contributor to WordPress. Erick has created a number of plugins available from the official repository, including WP Print Friendly and View All Posts Pages, as well as the WordPress.com VIP External Permalinks plugin. Follow on Twitter @ethitter.
Gary Bacon
Gary A. Bacon is an avid WordPress fan. He is an attorney who has been practicing law for 29 years. He uses technology to advance his law practice. WordPress, has been the platform for his Law Firm website for several years. Mr. Bacon uses WordPress as a blogging platform as well as Content Management Software. He is eager to share this information with interested WordPress beginners. Follow him on Twitter @gabacon.
Jake Goldman
Jake Goldman is the owner of 10up LLC, a web agency focused on awesome WordPress implementations. At 10up, Jake works on exciting and wide ranging WordPress projects, like TechCrunch, 9to5 Mac, Hip2Save (the official deal blog of NBC’s Today Show), and Trulia. Jake is a writer and expert reviewer for Smashing Magazine, teaches WordPress at Boston University, and has authored over a dozen highly rated WordPress plug-ins. Jake founded the WordPress Providence meet up, and has spoken at WordCamps around the country, including Boston, New York, Mid-Altantic, Chicago, and Miami. Follow on Twitter @jakemgold.
Jane Wells
Jane is the UI/UX lead for WordPress, and manages the open source project. She’s worked with web design and usability for a dozen years, and has been employed with Automattic for the last three. In addition to speaking at WordCamp Miami, Jane will be there to represent WordCamp Central, the WordPress Foundation, and the WordPress core team, so if you have any questions for her she’d love for you to introduce yourself at WCMIA.
Check out more from Jane at jane.wordpress.com
Follow Jane on Twitter @janeforshort
Jess Jurick
Jess works as a Senior Web Strategist at 10up, a premium web strategy and development agency specializing in WordPress development. Jess has over four years of experience working in the interactive space with Fortune 20 brands, major non-profits and state organizations, including CVS Caremark, Citi Bank, the Rhode Island Department of Health, the University of Rhode Island, and Universal Sports. Jess is passionate about creating an interactive and engaging audience experience. From layout concepts, to copywriting, to social media integration, Jess knows how to captivate, measure, and keep an audience. Jess graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Science in Communications. Follow on Twitter @jessjurick.
John Sexton
John is a Neuroscientist-turned-entrepreneur who is passionate about communication and design. He is Founder and Creative Director of Groupmind Media, a web strategy and design agency that helps individuals, teams and brands develop and execute creative ideas online. He has been in love with WordPress since 2005 and he believes that pasta exists purely as a vehicle for parmesan cheese. Follow on Twitter @heyjohnsexton.
Kevin Zurawel
After a series of career adventures that included selling textbooks and hauling Ethernet cable through ceilings, Kevin Zurawel became a Django developer for the University of Miami Libraries by day and a WordPress and web design consultant by night. His consultancy, Arbor Web Solutions, has been bringing smiles to clients’ faces (and serious results to their businesses) for six years. Follow on Twitter @kzurawel.
Lisa Sparks
Lisa Sparks is a marketing expert with 13 years of experience developing and implementing marketing communications solutions for small and medium sized businesses. Lisa uses her expertise to teach small organizations in South Florida how to use technology to maximize the power of relationship marketing. She is experienced in providing guidance, instruction, and comprehensive planning advice for the development, growth, and expansion of new and existing businesses. An award-winning business strategist and accomplished speaker, Lisa educated more than 3,000 people on the power of relationship marketing in 2011. Follow on Twitter @LisaSparksCTCT.
Maria De Los Angeles
Maria De Los Angeles is an award-winning freelance wordsmith who writes about all kinds of fun stuff — from sex to pirates, travel, social media, spirits (the imbibing kind), culture, fishing and more on her blog Sex and the Beach. She is also a travel editor and contributor at Miami Beach 411, where she helps moderate and manage an online community. Maria is very involved in the South Florida social media scene and creates events such as HeartCamp and SxSe. She also teaches custom workshops for bloggers, specializing in newbies. Maria is pleased to be part of WordCamp Miami for a second year in a row, the proud mom of a new WordPress site. Follow her @vicequeenmaria.
Mason James
Mason spends a majority of his day helping folks harness WordPress to their every whim either through the forums at WPMU DEV or via private consulting. He is a resident Support Dude for Incsub, LLC. He has a passion for creating solutions and truly loves it when a plan comes together. When not connected to a computer he’s probably playing music, video games, or with his puppy, Penny (photos available on request). Follow on Twitter @masonjames.
Melissa Venable
Melissa A. Venable is an experienced instructor, advisor, and instructional designer in higher education, but her career has not been that of the traditional academic. As an education writer for OnlineCollege.org‘s Inside Online Learning blog she covers current trends, provides resources for online students and instructors, and moderates a weekly Twitter chat (#IOLchat). Melissa also promotes the use of social media in academia and career services through continued research and conference presentations.
Myke Bates
Myke is a web developer, musician, husband, and pizza connoisseur. While not one to boast of verbose skill sets and fancy job titles, Myke is known for crafting one-of-a-kind WordPress themes and solutions. Born and raised in the Midwest, his friendly approach sets him apart from the others. By day, you will find him combining technology and creative ideas together with his friends at The Alchemedia Project. By night, he is most always burning the midnight oil on a handful of freelance projects and other personal ventures. Follow on Twitter @MykeBates.
Pamela Wynn
Pamela S. Wynn has been a technology enthusiast since the buzz word of the day was AV and the audio visual department was the realm of “guys only.” As a collaborative divorce attorney Pamela helps parents reconfigure their families without conflict and is the co-host of the Divorced Parent Telesummit. Pamela is a respected blogger on divorce and marketing topics. In addition, she provides guidance and support to micro-businesses focusing on simple, sustainable business practices, do-it-yourself marketing, and WordPress websites. Her wide-ranging interests include health and wellness, social media, politics and dogs. Follow on Twitter @diyPam.
Ptah Dunbar
Ptah Dunbar is a core contributor of WordPress, BuddyPress, bbPress and founder of WP Dev Agency, a WordPress development consultancy. Since 2006, Ptah has been involved in the WordPress eco-system creating themes, plugins, providing WordPress training, pioneering new development best practices and speaking at several WordCamps across the States. He is best known for his work contributing in WordPress 3.0 as well as authoring WP Framework, a rapid theme development framework.
Rick Tuttle
His wife and two daughters affectionately call him “Papa” and that is why Rick Tuttle chose the name Papasoft for his web development business. After trying every CMS on the planet he started using WordPress when it was still in its infancy and has been a developer and advocate ever since. (Rick did the theme styling work for the WordCamp Miami 2012 website.)
Some of his favorite things are: baseball, jazz piano, classical piano nocturnes, gospel choirs, the Moon, “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, paintings by artists from the Hudson River School, and too many gastronomical delicacies to list. Follow on Twitter @ricktuttle.
Sam Grant
Sam Grant is an educator, designer, husband, father, and cartoonist, with over 25 years of experience the graphics industry. A WordPress convert since 2007, he now implements this powerful CMS on all of his web-based projects. Currently, he is a web development instructor at Miami Dade College, Creative Director for the marketing firm Armstrong Creative Consulting Inc., an award-winning graphic novelist, and a freelance designer. (Sam is the designer of this year’s Wordcamp Miami 2012 logo.) He affirms that the creative process may have boundaries, but creativity has no limits.
Sam’s interest include pre-seventies Jazz, traveling, sports, and just plain relaxing. You can catch him blogging at samgrant.com and on Twitter @samsaysyo.
Stephen Gilboy
Stephen is the Senior Developer for AuctionAnything.com developing within multiple applications and platforms. Lately his focus has been on the mobile marketplace and cross-platform communications. Follow on Twitter @MorningZ.
Steven Mautone
Steven Mautone is the owner of inverted Web, a service focused on helping small businesses leverage the power of WordPress to build their Web presence. Steven is also the Content Strategy Lead for RoyalCaribbean.com, working towards building a global platform for the international cruise line. He is an active blogger and obsessed with all things Web and mobile; follow him on Google+ or Twitter.
Syed Balkhi
Syed is a WordPress designer / developer and founder of the WordPress resource site WPBeginner.com. He has 9 years of experience working in the web industry and has been working with WordPress since 2006. Syed’s past experience includes consulting with businesses and individuals on all different levels including Fortune 500 companies. He is mostly known for his aggressive marketing skills, creative designs, and SEO expertise. Follow on Twitter @syedbalkhi.
Taryn Pisaneschi
Vicent Llopis
Vicent Llopis is an Associate Creative Director at Nobox, a Miami-based digital agency with offices in San Juan (Puerto Rico) and Saõ Paulo (Brazil). He’s been a creative for more than 12 years, working for national and international brands like Lexus, Ford, Mozilla Firefox, Copa Airlines or S.C. Johnson, among others. Currently, he’s also a copywriting instructor at the prestigious Miami Ad School and manages several WordPress sites targeting a multicultural audience. Follow on Twitter @digitalmknews.