Meet our Speakers! Round Two

We’d like to give shout out to our second round of speakers. Their presentations will focus on everything in-depth technical talks about “how WordPress works” to building businesses around WordPress, content strategy, performance, marketing, and more.

  • Micah Wood: “A deep dive into WordPress Loops”
  • Erin Smith: “Getting Sassy with CSS: An Introduction to Writing CSS with Sass”
  • Taylor Waldon: “Becoming a Content Powerhouse with Strategic Project Management”
  • Ashley Chadwick: “Conducting a content audit: how to Marie Kondo your website to improve the user experience”
  • Asenath “CC” Horton: “WordPress and Building a Business: Working with Clients to Have a Win-Win Project and Clients for Life”
  • Dave Lewis: “Setting up a basic WordPress site with plugins”
  • Kim Sherman-Labrum: “Website Best practices for small businesses”
  • Braxton Wood: “WordPress + Pinterest: The Mind-Blowing Strategy for Content Marketing and SEO”
  • Tomas Mulder: “Building Fast WordPress Websites”
  • David Needham: “Visual regression testing with BackstopJS”
  • Asenath ‘CC’ Horton

    A Utah native, Asenath ‘CC’ Horton is a web programmer for Aramsco, an international industrial supply company, based out of New Jersey. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, and has practiced in the field of business since in 1999. As a self-taught programmer, she has deployed over 70 web applications throughout her career, working either for the business or closely with team to create and implement strategic digital assets to streamline their workflows, sophisticate their market data, and impact their ability to compete in the market. As a scrum practitioner, she loves agile project management and team development, and knows how to bring a project solidly from idea to complete while retaining and building the team. In addition to programming, she is a ninja chef, gardening yogi, and practicing puppy whisperer.

  • Ashley Chadwick

    Ashley’s experience with WordPress dates back nearly 10 years. She currently works with WordPress in the higher ed sector. Previously, she specialized in building websites for small businesses. Ashley hails from Wyoming and Montana. In her (rare) spare time, she enjoys any food made with dark chocolate, running, and all things outdoors.

  • Braxton Wood

    A French poet once said, “Perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.” It is this sentiment that Braxton Wood strives to operate from 100% of the time. Originally hailing from the “Silicon Desert” of Phoenix, Arizona, Braxton specializes in removing bottlenecks that often plague small businesses. Having spent 10 years in marketing, another 5 years in software, as well as managing the administrative systems and training programs for 9 figure companies, he has developed a keen eye for streamlining internal and external processes to help small businesses scale with as little friction as possible.

  • Dave Lewis

    Dave Lewis’s background includes more than twenty years developing and delivering training to public and private sector businesses and organizations. Those trainings covered a broad spectrum of topics including software training and support, computer repair, communications, public speaking, and video conferencing. His experience includes time helping national and international organizations use their web presence and technology more effectively. He also has over twenty years experience in martial arts.

    Dave has lived in Treasure Valley his entire life and with his wife spend their time traveling with their four children and three grandchildren.

  • David Needham

    David Needham is a Developer Advocate at Pantheon where he focuses on developer education and training. When he’s not blogging about productivity at davidneedham.me or speaking at conferences, you can probably find him with his bicycle-lovingfamily playing board games in Champaign, IL.

  • Erin Smith

    Currently working as a freelance WordPress developer, Erin loves exploring the possibilities of WordPress and pushing it in new directions. When not working, you’ll find Erin spending time with her husband and five kids, playing board games or squeezing a Netflix session in.

  • Kim Sherman-Labrum

    Kim started with the Idaho SBDC in 1998 as the regional administrative assistant as she pursued her degree. After several years, she took over the training program and turned it from an under-performing, deficit program to an award winning program with a surplus budget. In 2012, she became a business consultant specializing in online marketing, social media, graphic/web design. Over the years, she has designed curriculum and taught classes on a variety of business and technology topics. She planned and executed a rural outreach program that caught the eye of Google and was featured in a video for their Get Your Business Online program. She holds a B.A. in Graphic Design from Boise State University as well as a Credential of Readiness Harvard Business School CORe. She was recently named a High Impact Partner for the Grow with Google program.

  • Micah Wood

    A professional WordPress developer for over a decade, Micah has worked on sites for Fortune 100 companies, has released over a dozen WordPress plugins, is a frequent speaker at WordCamps, co-organizes the WordPress Gwinnett meetup, is a co-host on the WP Square One podcast and shares his knowledge by blogging on WordPress development topics. Currently, Micah works at Bluehost and spends most of his time contributing to WordPress core.

  • Taylor Waldon

    Taylor (Elizabeth-Rose) Waldon is the Content Writer for Impress.org, creators of GiveWP and WP Business Reviews. She has a passion for WordPress and over 8 years of professional experience in marketing, website content management, as well as content writing and editing. She spent a few years traveling and living in various locations around the United States while supporting herself through remote work. Recently, Taylor resettled in her hometown of San Diego, where she lives with her two dogs and explores San Diego through mini hiking adventures.

  • Tomas Mulder

    Tomas has been building websites since 2002, and WordPress websites since 2010. He has coded for major brands like Boppy, Frontier Airlines, and The Lumineers. Working as a freelancer under the company name Aquamarine, Tomas now specializes in custom WordPress theme development.