Category Archives: The More You Know

Get to Know Your Speakers: George Stephanis

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George Stephanis1) What do you do for a living (company you work for, official title, daily responsibilities, etc.)

I work for Automattic, leading the team that builds the Jetpack plugin! 🙂

2) How did you get into WordPress?

I got into WordPress in depth around 2011 while freelancing — I was looking for a way to give back to the community and software project that had made my life so much easier.

3) What’s a great experience you had at a WordCamp?

While at the contributor day following WordCamp Philly 2011 — my very first WordCamp — Nacin merged in my first changeset to core, which I think was converting three sequential periods `…` into an ellipses `…` entity.

4) What are your non-WordPress, non-Computer related hobbies?

I enjoy woodworking and letterpress printing.

5) If you could be any fictional character, who would you be and why?

Probably Gilad Pellaeon, from the old Star Wars Extended Universe.  While he was an officer in the Imperial Navy and later the Imperial Remnants, he wasn’t evil, but rather an advocate for order, peace, and providing as best as could be managed for all the citizens under his purview.

Yes, I’m picking a Star Wars character, and no, this decision was in no way influenced by Joe.

Getting to Know Your Speakers: Dustin Meza

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Dustin Meza1) What do you do for a living (company you work for, official title, daily responsibilities, etc.)

I’m the Director of Customer Experience Operations at WP Engine. While my world changes every single day, the goal of the Customer Experience Operations team is to enable WP Engine to scale and maintain a world class experience for our customers. This is done by constantly innovating and providing tools, knowledge, resources, and more to our Support team, our Customers, and the Community.

2) How did you get into WordPress?

I joined WP Engine about two and a half years ago and hadn’t used WordPress before that, slowly but surely I grew my knowledge with a goal of being so knowledgeable I could handle customer tickets. When I got married last year I created our wedding site in WordPress which became my first venture into building a complete site, it was a lot of fun! I now want to give back to the community and am speaking at 3 WordCamps in July!

3) What’s a great experience you had at a WordCamp?

My first ever WordCamp was in Chicago, and it was a blast! Meeting so many people, making so many friends. My favorite part was on the last day a big group of us went on a river architecture tour and then went and watched the San Antonio Spurs win the NBA Championship, it was a night I’ll never forget!

4) What are your non-WordPress, non-Computer related hobbies?

Sports, I’ll basically play or watch any sport. Soccer is my favorite, and I’ve been watching all the Women’s World Cup matches currently going on. GO USA!

5) If you could be any fictional character, who would you be and why?

James Bond, specifically from the Daniel Craig movies. I’m a huge fan of the new Bond movies and I feel they’re doing such an awesome job of making Bond more human, showing his flaws, having him struggle with real world problems. But all the while gallivanting across the world and fighting evil!

Get to Know Your Organizers: Phil Erb

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Phil&Theresa1) What do you do for a living (company you work for, official title, daily responsibilities, etc.)
 
As a Systems Administrator & Programmer at the University of Scranton, I’m involved in a wide variety of technologies including out authentication and management systems, e-mail and collaboration platforms, and (of course) multiple WordPress installations for various blogs and sites.
 
2) How did you get into WordPress?
 
I used to have the notion that, as an IT professional, I should be coding my own sites. What usually ended up happening is that I never did much with my personal sites, because I didn’t have time to put into them. After playing with WordPress off and on with test sites, I finally made the jump to WordPress on my personal site (philerb.com) with WordPress 2.9 (December 2009). The more I dabbled, the more I realized the potential, especially with Custom Post Types in 3.0 and beyond.
 
3) What’s a great experience you had at a WordCamp?
 
My first WordCamp was Philly 2012. I’d only had limited interactions with the wider WordPress community up to that point (a couple of podcasts, browsing the forums, a little chat on Twitter), so this was a huge eye opener for me. I knew the software was great, but experiencing all those folks willing to share their experiences and knowledge – not only in sessions, but in hallway conversations, over lunch, exchanging e-mails – it’s incredibly exciting!
 
4) What are your non-WordPress, non-Computer related hobbies?
 
Living in a beautiful part of northeast PA, I try to get outside as much as possible to go hiking, camping, and playing in the yard with the kids. My other hobby is introducing my kids to all of the geeky greats – of course they’re ready for Star Wars Episode VII.
 
5) If you could be any fictional character, who would you be and why?

Scotty, from Star Trek – because I always multiply my estimates by a factor of four. How else could I be considered a miracle worker?

Get to Know Your Organizers: Joe Casabona

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1) What do you do for a living?

I’m a Front End Developer at Crowd Favorite, where we do enterprise-level development specializing in WordPress. I generally do things like theme and plugin development using HTML, Sass/CSS, Javascript, and PHP. I work with our Backend Developers to make super cool things!

2) How did you get into WordPress?

My freshman year of college (2003-04), my friend Steve Mekosh introduced me to this new blogging platform called WordPress. I checked it out and really liked. From there I started to play around with it, implementing it on my own blog first then doing some pilot programs with freelance clients I had. Around 2006-2007 I really started to push WordPress as a service since it was maturing, transforming from a blogging platform to a CMS. Now, it’s my go-to solution 🙂

3) What’s a great experience you had at a WordCamp?

Perhaps my most memorable experience is WordCamp Chicago 2014. Not only was there a great crowd at my talk and the conference in general, but Saturday I got to hang out with some really really great people, many of whom I now get to work with on a daily basis, including Chris and Karim! It was an incredibly fun night and the whole conference was a blast.

4) What are your non-WordPress, non-Computer related hobbies?

When I’m not in front of a computer, I like to spend time with my incredible fiancee Erin (pictured), play the drums, travel a bit, and I smoke cigars from time to time. I’m also a very big Star Wars and Disney fan; since my brother works at Disney World, I take a lot of opportunities to visit him 😉

5) If you could be any fictional character, who would you be and why?

Luckily the last question informs this one. I think I would be Obi-Wan Kenobi. He’s wise, a great fighter, strong with the Force. Oh and he’s a Jedi! What more could you want?