Profiles

Burritos, Pizza, Skiing, Biking, APIs, Tacos, PHP, JavaScript, Buffalo Wings, and Pizza APIs

I first came across WordPress in it’s early 1.x years reading about it while researching methods for dynamically creating websites. I finally first used WordPress for a business class project while at Northern Michigan University in 2005. We helped create a marketing plan for a local small business and one task I took on was creating a new website. The WordPress version was 1.5.

In the years after that, I dabbled with WordPress as well as other CMSes, but never took it up as a full-time gig. I only really thought it would every be hobby/side-work. About 5 years later late in the year 2010, the best thing ever happened to me… I got fired! I was working a retail management job where I saw no future. I was looking for ways to make a move to something I would love doing, but the stability of a paycheck kept me around. Getting fired was just the kick I needed and I took it upon myself to learn more about the work I had been doing mainly as a hobby since the late 90s, web design and development.

I started looking around the Milwaukee area for opportunities to learn more. I came across a burgeoning meetup community. Since I had some experience in the past with like technologies, the main meetups that caught my eye were the local PHP user group and the WordPress meetup. Now that I no longer had retail work hours, I decided I would make this part of my regular schedule and attend these and other meetups.

I remember first going to the meetups and my eyes were so glazed over with new stuff coming at me. Never did I think I would be the one up there. But, shortly after, a now good friend of mine had asked me to take a 10 min chunk of presentation at the WordPress meetup on installing WordPress through the command-line. “Well, I know CLI and can read directions”, I thought. As I found, this seemingly daunting task was made pretty easy just as I found WordPress makes many things.

Fast-forward a few years and I started working full-time developing for WordPress. I got involved with organizing the WordPress meetup and shortly after the first ever WordCamp Milwaukee which I continued organizing for years after. I found myself presenting at that same PHP meetup, where my eyes glazed over and becoming good friends with the organizers there and also found myself creating the first JavaScript User Group in Milwaukee. I dove in and became a core contributor to WordPress and started creating my own plugins and doing crazy things for very very big “household name” companies with WordPress.

Most importantly I gained some great experiences and met some amazing people doing this WordPress thing. I would never have imagined I would be doing what I do today before getting fired from that retail management job.