Speaker Announcement Round 5 For WordCamp Sacramento 2019

“Always in motion is the future,” warns Yoda when talking to Luke Skywalker on Dagobah Empire Strikes Back. It’s the perfect advise too because the future is always changing—especially in open-source software.

From security issues and bug fixes, to the whole new Gutenberg editor, WordPress is constantly changing and evolving. Constant change is the nature of technology and as members of the WordPress community, WordPress users, and those who make a living with the software, we’re often looking to the future, forecasting what’s to come, and improving our knowledge and skills to remain competitive.

If you have thought about the future of WordPress, where the open source platform is going, and how you can best grow your skills, WordCamp Sacramento—happening September 21-22, 2019—is the perfect place for you to be.

For 2019, we’ve got an incredible lineup of speakers across three tracks and we’re excited to introduce you to the fifth round of speakers today:

WordCamp Sacramento 2019 Speakers: Round 5

Justin Busa

Justin Busa is a developer and co-founder at FastLine Media, the parent company behind Beaver Builder. Prior to the success of Beaver Builder, FastLine Media specialized in a range of digital services for clients all over the world.

Kathy Zant

Kathy has been working with WordPress for well over a decade. She leveraged her WordPress expertise to help site owners recover from hacks three years ago, and now helps agency and enterprise customers understand site security and how to get the most out of WordPress. She’s passionate about security, owning your own content, open source, helping beginners, and making technology accessible to everyone.

Topher DeRosia

Topher is from Grand Rapids, Michigan where he lives with his wife, 2 daughters, and 2 little dogs. He’s been a web developer for over 25 years, a WordPress developer for 9 years, and currently works for BigCommerce bringing better eCommerce to WordPress.

Mitko Kochkovski

Mitko aims for perfection and he is eager to expand his knowledge and skill base and always looks forward to new challenges. His love for WordPress and the need to stay up-to-date has driven him to attend WordPress Conferences all over Europe and has benefited from his connection to the small but growing WordPress community in Macedonia. He likes to give back to the WordPress community by adding plugins and helping with core updates. Last year he founded webpigment.com that specializes in WooCommerce themes and plugins.

Tessa Kreisel

Teaching and mentorship come naturally to dog-lover, and open source developer advocate for Pantheon, Tessa Kriesel. She wears many hats in her life—all with sass and finesse—including instructor for Girl Develop It, organizer for WordCamp Minneapolis, and founder of Outspoken Women and Coders of Tmrw. Tessa has spoken on many topics including helping beginners with workflow, teaching on configuration management, and shedding light on conquering continuous development and deployment. She has also been a panelist on a wide range of topics at Meetups and Conferences.

When Tessa isn’t working on her front and back-end chops or mentoring junior developers, she is using her extroverted superhero skills to make people feel welcome and included at whatever event she attends be it a WordCamp, DrupalCon, or Joomla!Day. Ask her why she loves opensource on Twitter at @tessak22 and check out her website at tessak22.com.

Nick Leffler

Nick Leffler is the owner of Exprance, a Sacramento web design agency and several other businesses that use WordPress. Nick has been working with WordPress since about 2013 and has developed several WordPress multisites for WordPress (or Website) as a Service (WaaS).

Rory Heaney

Rory Heaney has led and created successful, tailored application and website solutions for top brands, including Betsy Farms and PetAction Plus as well as for celebrity personalities such as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Emily Henderson. As the Senior Front End Developer for Cie Digital Labs, Rory steers the ideation/execution of web applications as well as mobile and portal development for clients across industries, including Pilot Flying J and Nitto Tire. He’s proficient in CSS, CSS3, HTML, HTML5, JavaScript, jQeury, Vue, and PHP languages, and has successfully built more than 500 websites over the past eight years. WordPress rules, He’s out!

Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan has been making websites for a long time. She has taken on many roles in the communications sphere, including: webmaster, designer, developer, artist, project manager, event coordinator, and marketing specialist. She has had the pleasure to work with organizations like the Sacramento Public Library, The Nature Conservancy, The World Economic Forum, Sacramento State University, and the City of Rocklin. Currently, she divides her time teaching web design at Sacramento City College, coordinating web and marketing for Sierra 2 Center, juggling freelance web projects, and making fine art.

Stay Tuned!

If you’re getting as excited as we are about WordCamp Sacramento 2019, make sure you sign up for the email updates about the event. That way you’ll get all the details about the call for volunteers, tickets, the schedule and sessions, and more.