Organizers

Justin Sainton

Justin Sainton is the founder of Zao, an agency based near Portland, Oregon. As a core contributor to WordPress and lead developer for the WP eCommerce project, Justin believes passionately in the philosophy of open source software. Working exclusively with WordPress and an array of other open-source technologies, Justin and Zao have provided creative and effective solutions for a wide variety of companies and associations ranging from Amazon to PayPal to Pitney Bowes. When not building the Zao empire or spending time with his beautiful wife and three incredible kids, Justin can be found enjoying the best espresso in Portland

Robert Lilly

Robert created his first website in 1993 and has been at ever since. He is currently the Business / Marketing / DevOps Manager at Debbie A Taylor LLC.

Faddah Wolf

Faddah Steve Yuetsu Wolf, a man with just too damn many names, is a 60s/70s throw back, ever posing the question to Porpsters, “why all the hating on the hippies?” Though he has a Performing Arts BFA degree, he has been tinkering with computers, software and gadgets since 1987. He has done tech support, QA and various forms of software development/engineering. An early beta version of his name appears in the “thank yous” to the Yes mid-90s album, “Talk,” for assisting in pulling the midi info on their hard drive back from the depths. Whether he should be thanked or damned for doing so depends on how you feel about the band/album. He also has practiced zen meditation since 1996, which is partly responsible for the growth of his name, and in the last five years has become quite the yoga junkie, preferring his prawna deep fried. He also loves bicycling about everywhere, and has done the Seattle to Portland bicycle ride in 2015 and has done the Portland Providence Bridge Pedal the last three years.

He has been a Burning Man Black Rock Ranger and led meditation sessions out there at the “playa zendo.” He also is quite a fan of the music Django Reinhardt (the French Gypsy Jazz Guitar Player, not the web programming framework), and gave a talk on Gypsy Jazz, as well as music performance, at Portland’s Ignite 9. Thankfully, no one in that audience seems to have been harmed by this experience. His writing can also be found on the blog, ialsowent.com, and he keeps threatening to do something with 140moviereview.com, the latter based on the twitter account. He is also a guest contributor of local Theatre reviews at Portland Stage Reviews. His musings can also be seen at various comedy Open Mics and Showcases around greater Portland. He also refers to himself as “pleasure activist” and “beer snob.” Oh, and he has fallen deeply in love with Portland as a transplant; for it’s strong coffee, stronger women, tasteful micro-crafted beer, and it’s wild, Open Source Heart.

Matthew Eppelsheimer

Matthew is a WordPress core contributor and the principal of Rocket Lift, a Portland-based digital marketing agency. He started Rocket Lift to offer “gee whiz the-future-is-now” communication and information technology to organizations that make a difference. He is a seasoned management consultant with experience supporting multimillion dollar government projects, non-profit development campaigns, and private sector ventures.

Matthew has got WordCamps mixed up with vacations. He’s attended them for four years all around the world, including most recently in Vancouver, British Columbia and Sevilla, Spain. This year, he’s our volunteer coordinator, in a reprisal of his role during WordCamp Portland 2013, when he was also one of our speakers.

Matthew cares deeply about sustainable food systems and the Portland Timbers soccer club.

Liz Karaffa

Liz Karaffa is an employee at Zao, an agency based near Portland, Oregon. She spends half her time project managing and the other half contributing to the docs team for WordPress. When not working for the Zao empire, Liz can be found caring for her toddler and preparing for her second child due any day.