Aurooba Ahmed
Chris Garrett
Chris Garrett is the Chief Digital Officer for Rainmaker Digital (owner of Copyblogger and StudioPress brands), where he is in charge of company growth through digital channels. He is also the co-author of several books, including Problogger with Darren Rowse. He has more than 22 years of professional internet consulting, direct marketing, advertising, and web development experience, working with global brands such as Toshiba, Durex, Heinz, Procter & Gamble, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, and Coca-Cola.
Before joining Copyblogger full time, Chris ran a successful consulting business for 8 years. Chris teaches Business Blogging, Digital Writing, and SEM courses at MRU, and speaks at conferences and organizations around the world on the topics of online business, web development, and content marketing.
David Andrew Wiebe
Hailing from Camrose, Alberta, Canada, David Andrew Wiebe is a multi-talented guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.
He grew up in Takarazuka, Hyogo, Japan, where he went to public school from kindergarten to grade eight, and became fluent in the Japanese language.
Wiebe started his own podcast in 2009, and has been creating a variety of resources for musicians ever since. One of his primary projects at this moment is The Music Entrepreneur website, which features blog posts, podcast episodes, eBooks, audio courses, and other resources.
Aurooba Ahmed
Tammy Valgardson
Tammy is the Development Director at Kick Point. She is also an organizer for the WordPress Edmonton Meetup and she organized a Stupid Sh*t Nobody Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon — the first in Edmonton!
You may have heard her speak at WordCamp, Ladies Learning Code, SMBYEG, Nerd Nite, on CBC radio or in your local coffee shop, late one evening, going on about the mating habits of butterflies or squid. It’s fascinating stuff. She has also been a sessional instructor at Macewan University for two semesters teaching Web Design & Development. It’s also fascinating stuff.
Twitter: @tammalee
Joel Klettke
Joel Klettke is a freelance conversion copywriter and strategist from Calgary, Alberta. He runs Business Casual Copywriting, where he’s helped clients like HubSpot, InsightSquared and WP Engine turn more visitors into customers.
He also owns Case Study Buddy, a done-for-you case studies service, and enjoyed a brief but glorious stint as a lower-than-D-list Canadian news celebrity. You can follow him on Twitter @JoelKlettke.
Rhett Soveran
Rhett Soveran is the Product Manager for RealAgriculture, an agriculture publication focussed on farmers and ranchers in Canada. He has been a passionate WordPress user since 2006 and is excited by the challenges faced by all media companies, big and small. Prior to working for RealAg, Rhett managed the digital endeavours for WestJet Magazine and The Western Producer newspaper.
Paul Thompson
Often called a geek translator by his clients, Paul specialises in helping transform the buzzwords of web marketing into solid strategies and business results for bloggers and small/medium businesses as well as enterprise clients.
As a web marketing and SEO consultant, Thompson focuses primarily on optimizing existing sites into powerful marketing platforms. Using his extensive expertise in technical SEO audits as a basis, he incorporates custom analytics, content marketing, conversion optimisation, email marketing, paid search, and social influence marketing (ah, the buzzwords!), depending on the client’s needs. Thompson also provides one-on-one coaching and training in these areas.
He’s been managing and marketing sites since 2002, including stints running major web programs for Banff and Lake Louise Tourism and Travel Alberta, and has been working with WordPress since 2009. When he’s not at the keyboard, he’s likely on his bike or cross-country skis, or on the hiking trails around his home in Canmore, camera in hand.
website: www.buzzwordstobusiness.com
Twitter: @thompsonpaul
Clarissa Peterson
Clarissa Peterson is a UX and digital strategy consultant based in Calgary. She frequently speaks at tech and design conferences on topics such as responsive design, user experience, and mobile strategy. She also teaches in the web developer fast track program at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). Clarissa is the author of Learning Responsive Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide (O’Reilly Media, 2014).
Twitter: @clarissa
Michael Bourne
WordPress developer. Beer lover. Travel fanatic.
I am an ex-petroleum industry specialist turned freelance WordPress developer. Since creating my first website in the late 90s, I’ve enjoyed the challenge of sharing my knowledge with others while climbing the steep learning curve of web technologies myself. From being a staff member of a 100k+ user webdev forum in the early 2000s, to the present day as an active community member in several WordPress-based groups.
The fall of our local oil economy took me outside the box for a career path, and two years ago I chose to take my love for development a step further and began professional freelancing. With a little luck and a lot of plain hard work, I’ve turned that into a successful career. I’ve done site and plugin development for many agencies and direct for businesses throughout North America. Even got my first plugin accepted in the WordPress Plugin Repo in March! I create modern, customized websites that are optimised for both speed and mobile responsiveness.
When I’m not happily toying with WordPress, PHP, and CSS in front of a screen, you can often find me enjoying the downtown Calgary food scene with a local brew in hand, or simply flying off for my next adventure.
Web: https://yycpro.com
Twitter: @calgarywebdev
Kim Page Gluckie
Kim Page Gluckie is into her third decade as a passionate marketing, communications & brand strategist. She is known as a no-baloney small business catalyst, marketing consultant, content creator and writer, online and in-person workshop developer, and speaker.
In a world where tech, tools, ideas and opportunities overwhelm even the most savvy business owner, Kim filters the fluff to share the marketing strategies most likely to turn dreams into actions. She helps clients thrive with both practical advice and tough loving “you-can-do-it” coaching.
Kim left a 15-year corporate marketing communications career to launch her now 9-year young business, and leap into life with 3 daughters under the age of 6 at that time. As a result, she knows business growth does not follow a straight line. She has realized a depth of honesty, a sense of humor, and a stubborn will to fail fast & learn faster are required to maintain the grit to grow a business that will last.
Mike Tighe
Connor Turner
As a User Experience Designer, Front-End Developer, WordPress guru, and social media expert; Connor has over eleven years within the web design and start-up industry in North America. Working primarily with WordPress, he has worked with clients on a variety of projects in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Chicago, Washington D.C. and Austin. He has also been featured as an online expert for Metro Calgary, Global Calgary, CBC Alberta and was a speaker at the SXSW conference in 2010.
In 2010, Connor moved to Washington D.C. and spent two and a half years catching the political bug. Upon returning to Alberta in 2014,Connor became highly active in the provincial political community working with dozens of municipal and provincial candidates, MLAs, political parties and campaigns. He has been the official social media coordinator for political candidates and parties and recently sat on the board of directors of a provincial political party. Connor is also known as the founder of yycApps, the creator of The AlbertaTweets Project, and as a former co-organizer of the Calgary WordPress conference (2014-2016). He also dislikes Helvetica, but is no longer trying to justify his dislike for the font.
Twitter: @ctoverdrive
Dana DiTomaso
Dana is President & Partner at Kick Point, where she applies marketing into strategies to grow clients’ businesses, in particular to ensure that digital and traditional play well together. With her deep experience in digital, Dana can separate real solutions from wastes of time (and budget).
Dana was born in a steel mill but overcame these humble beginnings to move to Edmonton in 2010. In her spare time, Dana is the past-president of the Advertising Club of Edmonton and is the weekly technology columnist on CBC Edmonton AM. She also enjoys drinking fancy beer and yelling at football players.