Before jumping into the WordPress Community, I spent 13 years managing high performing teams of electronic technicians, while serving in the United States Marine Corps. During that time I witnessed a lot of technological change, and know first hand the importance of learning new skills.

Recently, I fell in love with all things WordPress. Over the past two years I have spent an unhealthy amount of time, learning everything there is to know about WordPress. During this time, I have worked with a number of clients who have picked WordPress for their primary website, and I find it exciting, that more and more Enterprise clients are using the platform too. Helping clients, solve tough problems, with custom tailored solutions built on WordPress, is what makes me excited to start each and every day.

In September of 2014 I joined a WordPress Development Agency called 10up. At 10up I am currently serving as a Project Manger. I spend my days coordinating the efforts on a number of WordPress projects, and my nights improving my skills as a WordPress developer.

Brian Goldstein has been using and building sites with WordPress since 2010.  First as a content manager, then as a developer, and now as a client liaison, Brian has seen WP from many of the perspectives you’ll come across.  Currently, Brian is the business development partner and 1/3rd of the new design consultancy Our Collective, with designer Billy Frazier and fellow WordPress impresario Justin Chick.  We believe in transparency and collaboration, and you can find all sorts of code goodies at our github profile. A St. Louis native and Mizzou grad,  Brian lives in U-City with his amazing wife Meg and the furball who bosses them around, Tigger.

Chris is a long time WordPress tinkerer. He’s been writing with WordPress since 2005 and is a co-organizer of the St. Louis WordPress Community Meetup group. Chris enjoys working with local small business and non-profits to build a sustainable and well-designed web presence – using WordPress of course.

During the day he’s lucky enough to work at Mercy – a non-profit healthcare system headquartered in St. Louis. Chris helps with UI and UX standards for data visualization efforts and helps manage documentation for Mercy’s Data Analytics and Reporting team.

Drew Bell has designed and developed for the Web since 1998. After brief careers running a small Etsy empire and teaching web design and illustration, Drew has returned to St. Louis, where he now fights Rails and WordPress applications.

Heather Acton is the founder of Helio Interactive, a WordPress-centric digital agency in Chicago, IL. She’s passionate about good practices, mentoring others, and drinking craft beer with colleagues and friends.

Jarrett is the founder and owner of WPfixIt.com, based on the Apple support model of offering instant WordPress support for a flat fee. Since 2011, they have serviced over 10,000 support tickets. Jarrett has taken his passion for people and excitement in technology to create success around him.
Long before he started his own business, hard work and ambition were traits that were well ingrained. By age 25, Jarrett already had been promoted to executive, sales and management positions in the fortune 500 retail industry throughout various parts of the country.

Not afraid of risk and motivated by the potential to give back, Jarrett turned his 7 year hobby of HTML and PHP play into a business. The key to his success was networking. “Getting myself out there is what kick-started my business. I didn’t make a lot of money, but it helped me create credibility and my reputation.” A few years into his first WordPress development business , he made a commitment to help others to enhance their on-line presence through the power of WordPress.

When Jarrett goes off-line, you’ll find him setting up camp and roughing it under the stars at the local beach side campgrounds with his wife Tarn and 5 daughters.

Joe McGill hails from St. Louis, MO, where he works as a web designer and developer at Washington University. He is an avid WordPress user, a core contributor since WordPress 4.1, and a participant in the RICG effort to bring responsive images into core. Find him online on Twitter or via his blog at joemcgill.net.

Konstantin is a WordPress developer, and Core contributor based in Southern California. You might remember him from projects like Twenty Twelve, Twenty Thirteen, or the new WordPress Theme Directory. At Automattic he’s is part of a team that contributes back to WordPress full time. He enjoys craft beers and good food — sometimes so much that he blogs about it.