Category Archives: Speakers

Announcing the WCSTL Speaker Lineup – Round 1

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The WordCamp St. Louis organization team is proud to present our first round of speakers for our 2017 event. We had a lot of a awesome submissions. We carefully went over all the submissions, as a team, and then voted on them. We looked for what we wanted to hear, what our local meetup group has been wanting to learn, and tried to select a variety of topics.

Please give our speakers a warm welcome. Please note, we’ve not posted the talk descriptions yet, but we’ve given a little tease, by unveiling the title of each speaker’s topic.  This is merely round 1, so there will be another round of announcements soon.

2017 WCSTL Speaker Lineup – Round 1

These are in no particular order.

Mike Hale

Mike Hale is from Warrenville, Illinois. He’ll be speaking about Building a Developer Friendly WordPress Plugin.

Mike Hale on Twitter – @mikehale

 

 

Steve Stewart

Steve Stewart is from St. Louis, Missouri. He will be speaking about Podcasting 101

Steve Stewart on Twitter – @stevestewartme

 

 

 

Tim Sisson

Tim Sisson is from Virginia Beach, Virginia. He’ll be speaking about Herding Cats: Tips for Leading Technical People.

 

Tim Sisson on Twitter – @boldgrid_tims

 

Michele Butcher- Jones

Michele Butcher-Jones is from Carbondale, Illinois. She will be speaking about Demons In the Closet.

Michele Butcher- Jones on Twitter – @Michele_Butcher

 

 

Dane Morgan

Dane Morgan is from southern Missouri. He will be speaking about WordPress Theme Code Reviews.

Dane Morgan on Twitter – @danemorgan

 

 

Emanuel Costa

Emanuel Costa is from Brazil, but lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. He will be speaking about The Ultimate Security Checklist For WordPress Websites.

Emanuel Costa on Twitter – @emanweb

 

 

Jennifer Swisher

Jennifer Swisher is from St. Louis, Missouri. She will be speaking about Creating Websites for Everyone.

Jennifer Swisher on Twitter – @jenswish

 

 

Like our speakers? Interested in what they’ll be talking about? Come get your ticket today, so you can see them present their topic on March 18, 2017, at Washington University!

Introducing Our WordCamp St. Louis 2017 Keynote Speaker: Jarrett Gucci

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Our keynote for WordCamp St. Louis 2017, is Jarrett Gucci. His talk will be about “WordPress, not just software, but LIFEWARE.” Jarrett dedicates his business, WPFixit.com, to helping WordPress users accomplish their goals, whether it’s spreading some message, or selling some product or service. He does this by providing services to fix WordPress sites, when those site owners are either too busy to do it, or they aren’t able to fix it. He has also spoken at several WordCamps around the United States, in the past few years.

His official bio:

Jarrett Gucci comes from a retail background that started at Home Depot in Buffalo, NY, as cashier, and 18 months later was asked to be a project manager, based out of Carson California, with a goal of opening 12 stores in 14 months. This goal was accomplished. He has also been an area manager at Big Lots, and Bed Bath and Beyond. He left his very last retail career as a district manager at Linens & Things, in 2007, to pursue a hobby of website development, as hope he could make some money doing it. After 4 years of building and managing WordPress sites, he founded a company called WP Fix It, and since 2011, his company has serviced over 30,000 WordPress support tickets. Something you may not know about Jarrett, besides all this, is that when he was 15 his neighbor gave him a 1962 dodge dart, and he completely took it apart and rebuilt it.

We went ahead and asked Jarrett a few questions for us, so here is his interview:

NILE FLORES: WordPress, not just software but LIFEWARE, why did you pick this topic?

JARRETT GUCCI: Some look at WordPress and see a software or a tool that can build an online presence for their idea, service or message. Then there are others that look at WordPress and see a living and breathing POWERHOUSE PLATFORM. Let me walk you down the path of how WordPress can provide an opportunity to accomplish all your goals.

NILE FLORES: What would you like people to takeaway from your talk?

JARRETT GUCCI: I would love for attendees to get inspired and energized not only about WordPress but also the upcoming talks they will attend at this WordCamp.

NILE FLORES: What motivated you to start using WordPress?

JARRETT GUCCI: I began to use it based on a need to develop client sites faster. I stuck with it because of the community that surrounds it.

NILE FLORES: What motivated you to contribute back to WordPress?

JARRETT GUCCI: My favorite thing is helping others to learn and be successful. Giving back to the WordPress community allows me to do both of these.

NILE FLORES: Who do you look up to in the WordPress community, and why?

JARRETT GUCCI: I can not really pin point a certain person or people. I can honestly say that over the years, those I have met in the WordPress community have been very gracious and humble.

NILE FLORES: What’s the biggest 1 or 2 things that WordPress users should be doing with their websites?

JARRETT GUCCI: Same thing they should be doing with everything in life, learning and growing to be better.

If you’d like to hear Jarrett’s talk, you’ll need to buy a ticket to WordCamp St. Louis. Hope to see you March 18th!