Beyond client work and LinkedIn Learning courses, I invest time in community building, education, and open source initiatives that strengthen the broader ecosystem.
Current Projects
FAIR Package Manager
Co-Chair, Technical Steering Committee
FAIR (Federated and Independent Repositories) is an open-source project under the Linux Foundation working to improve security in the WordPress software supply chain. We’re establishing decentralized infrastructure where no single entity has complete control over distribution, reducing single points of failure and strengthening community governance.
As one of the elected co-chairs of the Technical Steering Committee, I help guide technical direction, coordinate with contributors, and advocate for the project’s mission. This work combines my technical expertise with my passion for open source governance and community building.
The MenoPosse Show™
Co-Creator, Co-Host
A podcast providing community, information, and honest conversations for perimenopausal and menopausal women. While not directly work-related, this project demonstrates the same skills I’ve developed throughout my career: building supportive communities, facilitating meaningful discussions, making complex topics accessible, and showing up consistently.
The same approach that built WordPress communities now serves a different but equally important audience navigating a major life transition.
Bargain BookFinder
Creator
A search tool I built to explore AI-assisted development using a real problem I wanted to solve. The app helps readers find discounted books from their existing reading lists.
Working with an AI coding agent taught me how to collaborate with these tools effectively—setting clear constraints, maintaining quality standards, and knowing when to override suggestions. A personal project, but built with the same principles I bring to client work: privacy by default, solid security practices, and an accessibility-first approach.
Past Projects
Educational courses, premium themes, and community projects I’ve created that helped advance professional standards in WordPress development.
The Fearless Freelancer
2018-2021, Creator and Instructor
A comprehensive course series I created and self-published to help web professionals transition to freelancing. The curriculum covered pricing, contracts, client management, and business sustainability—distilled from my own experience and the questions I heard repeatedly from aspiring independents.
Though retired, the principles I developed and taught continue to inform how I approach business relationships and project management today.
OfficeHours.FM
2014-2018, Creator and Host
A long-running podcast where I interviewed WordPress professionals, freelancers, and entrepreneurs about building sustainable businesses. Over four years, I published 160+ episodes featuring honest, practical conversations about the real challenges and rewards of independent work.
The show attracted 1,500+ monthly listeners and garnered mentions across major WordPress publications including WP Tavern, Torque Magazine, and WP Elevation. We also launched an e-book distilling business wisdom from the first 100 episodes and created a membership community for listeners.
WP Development Workflow
2015-2017, CREATOR and Host
A comprehensive learning resource I created and hosted with instructor Mika Epstein to help junior WordPress developers transition to professional workflows. The curriculum covered version control, local development environments, deployment strategies, and workflow automation.
The course equipped developers with the workflows and confidence to make that critical leap to professional-level work.
Utility Pro
2013-2018, Author
A Genesis Framework child theme that set new standards for accessibility and internationalization in WordPress theme development. When Utility Pro launched, fewer than 30 themes in the entire WordPress repository were tagged “accessibility-ready,” and only two Genesis child themes met accessibility standards—Utility Pro and Rian Rietveld’s Leiden.
The theme was the first premium Genesis child theme to deliver full translation support and WCAG 2.0 Level AA accessibility compliance. It shipped with 10 community-contributed translations, performed seamlessly with RTL languages, and employed mobile-first CSS architecture before mobile optimization became standard practice.
Through collaboration with developers like Rian Rietveld, Gary Jones, Robin Cornett, and Amanda Rush, Utility Pro helped push the Genesis Framework and its marketplace toward better accessibility standards. Within a year of its release, the Genesis Sample theme and many other Genesis child themes upgraded to include accessibility support—demonstrating how a single well-executed project can shift industry standards.
Gigglesnort Greetings
2008-2011, Creator
A greeting card company I founded featuring vintage photos paired with witty one-liners. What started with a box of old pictures and some sticky notes taught me invaluable lessons about distribution, pricing, and the realities of scaling a physical product business.
The cards themselves were successful—funny, distinctive, and well-received. But I learned that even with strong margins, low-cost physical products require volume and distribution networks that fundamentally shape the business model. It was an early lesson in how the best product doesn’t win if you can’t get it in front of customers efficiently.