Conference Chairs
Christie Koehler is a software engineer and open source enthusiast who is an active participant in the Portland tech community. In addition to leading Code ‘n’ Splode, a user group for women in technology, Christie is a Board member of Legion of Tech, which produces events such as IgnitePortland and BarCamp. When not programming, you can find her practicing yoga, making kick-ass vegan cookies, hiking around the Gorge, working on her house or trying to entertain her four cats.
Reid Beels writes code, dyes pixels by hand, takes photos, and thinks a lot about how things ought to work. He’s rather fond of bringing enthusiastic, awesome, people together to share knowledge and solve problems.
Project Management
Jim Eastman is an electrical engineer and embedded systems programmer currently working with toys that make noise and doing other strange things with electricity. He’s an open hardware advocate and believes strongly in open source everything. Since 2004, he has helped organize the annual Notacon conference in Ohio, and is very happy to now also be a part of the Open Source Bridge event. He is an avid cyclist, wine geek and long distance backpacker, and when not in Portland, it’s anyone’s guess as to where he’s gone off to.
Technology
Igal Koshevoy is a business-technology consultant that develops sophisticated applications using Ruby, Python, Java and UNIX. He’s an open source contributor and community organizer supporting the Calagator community calendar platform, Portland Ruby Brigade user group (pdxruby), Portland Functional Study Group (pdxfunc), Portland DevOps user group (pdxdevops), WhereCampPDX geospatial conference, Ignite Portland, Legion of Tech, OpenConferenceWare conference platform, and the AutomateIt configuration management system.
Kirsten Comandich is a web developer for musicians, artists and small businesses. She’s developed web applications for most of her career, first in C/C++, and later in Perl and Ruby. She has been a primary developer on elementalClinic, an open source patient management system for mental health clinics. Kirsten bikes around Portland and volunteers for the annual non-profit Cycle Oregon bike ride. In 2004 she led the organization of the Zimbabwean Music Festival in Portland, and has served on the Zimfest board of directors.
Marketing
Audrey Eschright is a programmer at Elevated Code working with Ruby, Rails, and occasionally iPhone development. Writer of essays, recipes, horror comics, and knitting patterns. Photographer working with digital and film cameras, including Polaroid, Holga, and pinholes. Community organizer of unconferences like WhereCampPDX. Core team member of the infamous Calagator. Agitator for a variety of grassroots local tech.
Melissa Chavez is a data journalist who utilizes open source technology in her research and reporting. In her free time, she documents street art, records where there are unisex and gendered restrooms around the metro area, helps plan Portland’s Vegan Iron Chef competition, and admires people’s awesome hat styles.
Volunteer Coordination
Shepherd Griffin is a web developer, graphic designer, events producer, animal lover, herbivore, DJ, and music enthusiast. He has been working in the tech community for over sixteen years using Linux environments, Windows, and Apple’s OS X, hand-coding websites, and creating graphic/print materials for the arts & entertainment industries. He has been organizing electronic music events for the last eleven years with such groups as Environmental Structures, Molecular, and Metacrew, and he is currently furthering his career in events production.
Logistics
Sherri Montgomery started out her tech career as a *nix systems administrator, but now spends her work days as a business systems analyst and data monger who administers systems that manage access & reporting for large data warehouses, helps clients identify processes clearly, writes functional requirements & use cases, and herds projects from development to implementation. She also is a Yoga Alliance certified teacher and enjoys bringing yoga classes to tech events. Sherri writes, cerates awesome vegan food, gardens, hikes and makes art.
John Labovitz is a programmer, photographer, typographer, and inveterate traveler. He has been volunteering for special events for most of his life, having grown up with a mother who was a volunteer coordinator. Most recently he was the director of the Silverton Fine Arts Festival.
