The Yarn Spinners – Round 2 of Speakers

Blog, Speakers

A proud tradition of skalds also hails from the County of Orange and legendary though WordCamp Orange County may be, we herby announce an even greater triumph. With great difficulty we narrowed our orator selections to a few brave souls. Here now, are our second round of speakers for WCOC 2018 – Huzzah!

Details of the yarns they spin will come forth in the weeks ahead.

Level Up with the Second Release of Poets:

Chris Ford

Over the course of her 20 year career Chris has been a visual and UX designer, brand strategist, front end developer, professional scrapbooker, magazine art director, project manager, and support lead. She also loves to write, speak and teach other people about all of those things.

Bob Watson

An early adopter of social media, technology, the Internet, Bob studies the latest in global trends to identify best practices in delivering a best-in-class service delivery to today’s consumer.

As a licensed real estate broker, he began his real estate career in the exclusive luxury market of Georgetown in Washington DC. He quickly became a Washington DC Association of REALTORS® Multi-Million Dollar Sales Leader. Bob’s real estate career has spanned sales, management, real estate brokerage ownership and executive leadership.

The internationally acclaimed Social Media Mastermind Orange County (SMMOC) was founded by Bob and his wife Kathy Klingaman in 2009 to provide the Southern California business community an opportunity to participate in a facilitated discussion to brainstorm and share best practices related to technology, the Internet and social media. In the past 9 years it has grown into a dynamic community with over 1,300 members with a global social media reach.

Jennifer Bourn

Jennifer Bourn is founding partner at Bourn Creative a full-service design and development company specializing in WordPress. With twenty years in the industry under her belt, she is an award-winning designer who consults on branding, website strategy, and content strategy. Jennifer speaks often, delivering workshops and keynote presentations, co-organizes the Sacramento WordPress Meetup and WordCamp Sacramento and writes regularly about freelancing, client services, blogging, marketing, websites, and branding. Learn more at https://jenniferbourn.com

Tim Strifler

Born and raised in Orange County, CA, Tim Strifler is the founder of Tim Strifler Online Solutions, a WordPress web design agency, and Divi Life, a leading Divi product company focused on creating plugins, child themes, and tutorials for the Divi theme framework. Tim is also the co-host of the daily WP the Podcast show, as well as a panelist on Divi Chat, a weekly live YouTube show. Tim now lives in Austin, TX with his wife Courtney and hyperactive dog Murphy. When not behind the screen, Tim enjoys hiking, mountain biking, droning, and anything else that get’s him outdoors.

Alicia St Rose

Alicia St Rose began her adventure with WordPress when a UX friend offhandedly suggested using the CMS for a mutual friend’s website. That was over 10 years ago and the adventure has turned into a torrid love affair. Now she is a freelance developer, exclusively powered by WordPress, and has yet to find a limitation in this magical piece of software.

She is owner, principal designer and developer at Intrepid Realist Web Consulting, a small agency that employs one. In addition to creating for WordPress, she is working on an online program for Virtual Assistance and Entrepreneurs who want to deck out their WordPress sites like the Pros. She is also a Creativity and Mindshift Mentor, aiding people in busting through their own limitations in order to express their own unique, wildly creative selves.

She currently lives in Santa Barbara, California with her two rambunctious cats, Oscar and Milo. She divides her time between that seaside town and Black Rock City, Nevada.

Brenner Adams

Brenner is the founder and CEO of the LINK Group that has processed $100MM in transactions, Advisor and Lecturer at CS1893 Academy, and Adjunct Professor of Startup at the University of Utah where he has ‘hatched’ over 200 student lead business ideas. He is the former game designer of the award winning game Amped at Xbox. Years of experience in software design, marketing, payments, snowboarding and skateboarding. Brenner also worked with the author’s of “I’ll eat that cricket,” a book about gamification and helped lead the team of gamifying projects for Intercontinental Hotels Group, Boeing, Time AOL, Dexter, and Barilla Pasta.

Gary Johnson

Gary Johnson, President of J2 Marketing, helps companies get more profitable clients. With 23 years of sales and marketing experience, Gary builds powerful strategies and offers simple solutions to grow business. Gary’s approach comes from experience and analysis of the most successful rainmakers in business.

Chris David Miles

Chris is a Project Manager for Bluehost in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has done freelance web design and front-end development for over a decade. He discovered WordPress in 2011 and has used it to build sites for clients and non-profits ever since.

Kitty Lusby

Kitty is a full time blogger and nerd based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Words are kind of her thing, and she takes pride in her years of writing and blogging experience for all kinds of businesses and purposes. You can find Kitty’s work scattered across the internet, or if you’re into things like marketing and SEO, you can read her posts on the NeONBRAND blog. Nerds who like science should check out Kitty’s online lab at Tryentific.com.

Rory Heaney

Senior Front-End Developer for CIE Digital Labs, and WordPress Timber ninja.

Sam Jadali

As a cybersecurity researcher and crypto activist, Sam’s dedication and passion in the cloud space has been alive and well before the term cloud was born. He has spent the last 20 years in the hosting industry and he founded Host Duplex 8 years ago. Since the launch of HD, Sam and his company have been not only managing WordPress sites but educating clients on security and performance to assist in their success. His clients include some of the most visited WordPress sites on the internet including MacRumors and even local Southern California companies like Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza. He quickly realized that client education is vital for not only their success but for his success. With his depth of knowledge of plugin security and compliance regulations, he continually educates his clients on how to be defensive with security while maintaining the performance they expect.

An avid Big 10 fan, Sam escaped the Iowa cold and moved to sunny Southern California 7 years ago. He currently resides in downtown San Diego and is currently learning the ropes of raising a new puppy.

Drew Wilde

Currently at Endurance International, I’m a Product Manager responsible for gathering and assessing business goals, market research, customer feedback, and other input to formulate product features, functions and requirements which offer significant competitive advantage for our flagship hosting brand Bluehost.com.

I’m passionate about the WordPress community and love to speak.

About Jen Miller

Jen Miller has spent a lifetime deep in the content trenches - more than 25 years - publishing everything from newspapers, magazines, and books to newsletters, emails, resumes, and websites. As the author of The Book on Content, entrepreneur, blogger, and sales and marketing expert, Jen understands how to use content to build authority, create trust, and forge lasting client relationships. Jen became known in the WordPress world as her company, Need Someone To Blog, published and promoted more than a million blog posts for companies and individuals representing many industries, from real estate and mortgage, executive coaching and leadership, health and fitness, construction, plumbing and air conditioning, insurance and finance, technology and start-ups to non-profits and artisans. Jen has a breadth of website content and business blogging knowledge you will not find elsewhere. Jen launched a course entitled "Create Great Content" in 2015, where she taught clients how to get the same results her company produced for their clients. She has spoken at many WordCamps and, in 2021, began sharing her knowledge as an adjunct faculty member at four universities. Professionally, as Director of Accounts at WebDevStudios, she helps clients find success through WordPress website enterprise solutions. Jen lives just outside of Phoenix, AZ, with her two teen sons and Goldendoodle dog and says she uses her college degree every day, having graduated from CSU, Long Beach, with a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies, an option in Music and a minor in Journalism. She also earned a Master of Science in Management and Leadership (MSML) and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Western Governors University and is working on a Ph.D. in Business at the University of the Cumberlands. Jen Miller is an active volunteer with her church and other non-profits in her area and has served as an organizer for WordCamp Phoenix, believing that the key to providing value is learning and sharing with her community.