About Christian rock from mid-to-late 1990s and 2000s:
I finally got around to putting together a playlist of a few hours of artists and songs I enjoy from this fairly obscure sector of music: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4oGKGQc3QmAvyn4omfVrDL?si=5127a02093ae452e
Enjoy! (Or just keep listening to Taylor Swift and Beyonce if you prefer–that’s totally awesome too!)
Hello Pantheoner’s!
A little late to the party on this thread but better late than never 
I have been in the web development world mostly focusing on the front end and utilizing solutions that have good support teams for the better part of a decade. I started my small agency after working alongside other local marketing firms while in college. I saw where they were using a business model that they couldnt itemize the services they provided their clients and would just name a figure even on small projects; using their influence in the community to gain the gig. I wanted to create something where I charged a bit more ethically, where I could show where the money was going and how to create true results.
Web Dev Word: I went to school with a huge focus on Cyber Security and started my business with a colleague who helped set up several server environments using antiquated solutions at first and building into more robust solutions that I still use to this day; other than of course with Pantheon clients.
I never considered myself what would be Full Stack or Software Engineer; however, I am now calling myself a Programmer-on-training-wheels. My real forte is networking with good content creators and using my analytical mind to build out digital strategies/SEM/SEO that rank high with google. I have also become quite good with Pay Per Click campaigns and Review Management, which is a good chunk of my monthly business. Driving results for my local small business owners is what I strive for, but I also love to get involved with my local nonprofits like NAMI (National Awareness of Mental Illness), MOWW (Military of World Wars), and VWMI (Vietnam War Memorial Initiative). Although i never served in the military my sister and several other relatives have. I feel a deep passion to help our veterans [as well as those with disabilities] any way I can.
On another personal note: I too - like Chris- LOVE TTRPG mostly Magic the Gathering. I have quite an extensive collection that had I known the cards would have been so expensive would not have sold a ton of them when I graduated college as I thought that I would likely never return after becoming “an adult” - haha the lies we tell ourselves! Now my collection is likely a 10th of what it once was, I still play casually amongst several friends I new back in college, as well as teaching several new friends now
I really love being involved with the Pantheon community. It has been a true joy learning how to develop better web solutions and grow as a developer!
Hey Reed! 
Thanks so much for sharing a little bit about yourself!
I started my small agency after working alongside other local marketing firms while in college.
This is so intriguing! Do you feel like working alongside marketing professionals helped better prepare you for working in development and project management? I ask that because as a marketer myself, the most valuable digital asset is my website Would love to hear your thoughts here!
My real forte is networking with good content creators and using my analytical mind to build out digital strategies/SEM/SEO that rank high with google. I have also become quite good with Pay Per Click campaigns and Review Management, which is a good chunk of my monthly business
That’s awesome @reed.mcdow! Would you be open to maybe sharing some best practices with the larger community? Or with our team? Also, I love how involved you are with nonprofits! Especially supporting our veterans. We have an employee resource group here at Pantheon with Veterans 
Some of the most selfless, pure human beings I’ve ever met.
Last but not least, let’s see this collection of yours! 
Now I am interested myself!
Hi I’m Bram and was actually also part of the previous community 
. As a job I’m working as a Drupal Developer and DevOps engineer. I’m an active contributor as well and maintain a handful of modules. Furthermore I also like to volunteer and co-organise the Belgian DrupalCamp.
As for hobbies I like to play soccer, game a bit every now and then and, take photo’s and play with my cat.
Really looking forward to DrupalCon Lille next month!
Hi all I’m Kevin Blanco, an accomplished Technology Evangelist, currently working as Senior DevRel Advocate at Appsmith and Tech Director at Decimal Studios. My mission is crystal clear: I’m here to engage, support, and empower developers worldwide, and I’m deeply committed to advancing the global developer community.
My expertise lies at the intersection of infrastructure, architecture, engineering, and digital product innovation. Over the course of 14 years, I’ve led multiple projects and development teams, orchestrating high-availability digital platforms at scale, dealing with staggering demand and transactions per second. I specialize in the design, deployment, and maintenance of cloud solutions, and I take pride in doing it with finesse, minimizing time, impact, and cost.
I’ve earned a prominent place in various tech communities, thanks to my active involvement in open-source and product-centric ecosystems. I’m a Drupal Certified Specialist Advocate and Google Expert Advocate in Google Cloud, and I’ve played a pivotal role in shaping and nurturing these communities. My portfolio includes speaking engagements at events, content publication, mentoring fellow developers, and making impactful contributions that have cemented my status as a trusted voice. Notably, I had the privilege of being a featured speaker at DrupalCon New Orleans 2016 and DrupalNorth Canada 2016. More recently, I was honored to be the keynote speaker at Google I/O Toronto 2023, with Google sponsoring my participation.
Drawing from my 14-year journey in the tech industry, I bring a multifaceted background spanning front-end, back-end, mobile development, and devOps, covering regions in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Over the past five years, I’ve excelled in roles such as Architect, Tech Lead, Tech Manager, and Tech Director, leading diverse projects for high-impact digital platforms. My ability to efficiently orchestrate cloud solutions has proven to be invaluable to my teams.
But it doesn’t stop there. Beyond my technical prowess, I also bring an artistic dimension to my work. I hold a degree from Film School and am certified as a Davinci Resolve editor and colorist. I leverage my creative acumen to deliver high-quality, engaging live streams. My recording studio is equipped with cinema cameras and top-notch audio facilities, demonstrating my commitment to producing exceptional content.
Hey @bram.driesen
It’s so good to see your face in here Thanks for being such a loyal community member! I remember you saying you managed several modules. Can you share some of those? Would love to take a peek!
Also I am a sucker for animal photos if you want to share your precious cat! 
Oh, and I heard DrupalCon Lille is going to be amazing! Lots of great sessions! Jealous, I wish I could be there!
Hey @kevin.blanco!
Thanks for sharing a little more about yourself! I will admit, I didn’t know a lot about your professional experience although as a Hero I really should have! Forgive me
That said, I am really impressed! You have such diverse experience! 
How has your experience been at AppSmith working as a Sr. Dev Advocate? Fun fact, I also work on the Dev Relations team. Although my background stems from marketing & building brand communities. My teammates however are all developers (front end/back end, etc.) so I am the black sheep here in the mix (but in a good way). Speaking of developer relations, I would love to hear your thoughts on the evolution of developer relations, seeing you have been in the space for 14+ years.
More recently, I was honored to be the keynote speaker at Google I/O Toronto 2023, with Google sponsoring my participation.
That is AMAZING! What an honor! Was this recorded by chance? I would love to hear it!
I’m, Danita Bowman, a long time Pantheon fan. I have a small, one-person agency. Over the years, I have built and/or managed multiple websites hosted on Pantheon. For the past few years, I have worked for other agencies and currently do more sales-engineer tasks than developing but still keep try to do some hands-on work with Drupal to keep current.
Welcome to the community @danita.bowman! I am really glad to have you here! And thanks for being such a loyal customer I always like asking – what could Pantheon do better? Curious to hear your thoughts!
I love how you have dabbled in sales engineering & development. You must have such a diverse set of skills! I have never worked for an agency myself, but I have worked with agencies. So much talent! Is Drupal your preferred CMS?
Terrance here, freelance software website developer since 1999.
I grew up interested in computers - mostly video games, playing on my Vic 20, Commodore 64, and Atari 2600. Through the years I watched the internet take off with Windows 95, knew that it would change the world forever.
I was a DJ in the 90’s and built my frst software application in MS Access which helped me categorize and easily search my 100’s of CD’s so I could find song requests quickly. After that I built and managed a Pawn Shop Software platform, also on top of MS Access, to run my Father’s (and then his friends’) pawnshops.
I got into websites when my daughter was born in 2001 using a “PHP for Dummies” book and my keen sense of adventure, and I’ve been specializing with WordPress since I discovered it back in 2004 (circa ver 1.2.1) back when postmeta was still a pipe dream. I started out adopting it for a community website and was hacking core just to add our own meta values in, then had to refactor when 1.5 answered our prayers. It was at that point I knew I would give up Mambo, Joomla, and all the other CMS’ I had tried, and put all my eggs in the WP basket.
Since then, I’ve used WP as the platform to build oodles of Ma/Pa business card sites, E-Commerce sites, headless API’s, Gaming platforms, Social Networking, intranet and Educational portals. I use my advanced PHP and JS skills to make bespoke experiences not just in the frontend but also manipulating the WP-Admin with taxonomies, custom post types, hooks, filters and custom plugins to give my clients exactly what they want, and how they want it. I’ve of the mindest that I can build anything in WordPress, but also, not everything has to be built in it. I choose the right tool for every job, and so I also dabble with Javascript/Node frameworks to build bepoke web apps for other projects, where WP is overkill and a simpler solution is best. And then I also mix and match, using WP as a headless API with frontend webapps and the like.
I have an uncanny knack for surfacing bugs in other people’s systems, and love to help troubleshoot and find the cause and solution for difficult problems. I find extreme satisfaction in a job well done, and sometimes have a little too little patience for those who don’t have the same work ethic as I do (working on that, still).
I’m hardworking, dedicated, focused, but I can also be fun, in the right context. Get me on a dance floor, and watch out!!!
Nice to meet y’all, thanks for inviting me to your hub.
Catch me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrance-orletsky/
My Website: https://www.earthman.ca
Need a DJ? Check out: https://events.earthman.ca
Welcome to the Community Hub Terrance!
Thanks for popping in to share a little more about yourself! I love learning fun little fcts about people!
Ohhhh 1999! Let us not forget the dial-up glory days 
I remember fighting with my sister because she wanted to chat with her friends on AOL but I wanted to call my friend (oh how far we have come). Anyways, that is awesome you have been a developer that long! 
I was a DJ in the 90’s and built my frst software application in MS Access which helped me categorize and easily search my 100’s of CD’s so I could find song requests quickly.
Whoooa this brings me back too! Loved a good CD mix! So neat you were a DJ previously too! Fun fact, I also dabbled in DJing when I was in college What kind of music do you enjoy listening to?
Since then, I’ve used WP as the platform to build oodles of Ma/Pa business card sites, E-Commerce sites, headless API’s, Gaming platforms, Social Networking, intranet and Educational portals. I use my advanced PHP and JS skills to make bespoke experiences not just in the frontend but also manipulating the WP-Admin with taxonomies, custom post types, hooks, filters and custom plugins to give my clients exactly what they want, and how they want it.
AMAZING! You have such an interesting background @terran.earthman.ca! @scott.buscemiis leading our WordPress efforts here, so you two should definitely chat if you haven’t yet! I feel like you two would totally get along Totally random thought here – but would you be interested in appearing on a live stream sometime? I think you have a lot of really great experience & I am sure @steve.persch would love to chat with you too!
Time to go check out this DJ website of yours!
Hi everyone! I’m Mark Montague, and I manage the Web Hosting Team in the central IT organization on the academic side of the University of Michigan (as opposed to the central IT organization for the healthcare side). We have three campuses, 19 schools and colleges, 44,310 students, 30,800 staff. We also have the largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere (3rd largest in the world).
In 2023, we signed a university-wide contract with Pantheon for hosting our most important WordPress and Drupal websites, which will replace five contracts negotiated by individual campuses/schools/colleges/institutes and makes Pantheon available to all university units.
On a personal note, I love dogs (photo below!), science fiction and fantasy books/movies/shows, and am a huge fan of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I’ve lived for most of my life. More details about me are available on my resume and GitHub profile.
I’m thrilled to be joining this community and I’m looking forward to getting to know a lot of people here!
Welcome Mark!
Super excited to have you here in the community hub! We are working on adding new opportunities for everyone to get participate in (we call these missions) & earn points towards some awesome swag in our storefront. Should you choose of course!
Your pups are absolutely ADORDABLE!! 
What are their names? I have a 5 year old pittie named Chubs (see photo below of her cheesin it waiting for her Uncle Marc to drop some food)! She was my first foster fail, and honestly the best pup I have ever had! She has helped me raise 11 puppies to date, including these two little ones pictured below who are 6 weeks old. Their names are Viola (black mix) & Tuba (brown)!
Also I just wanted to say thank you for trusting us with your business Mark! We love our EDU customers And that was such a great article /overview – thank you for sharing! I do have to admit something, and hopefully we can still be friends. But I am a die hard Buckeyes fan! O - H - I - O! Although, oddly enough I am from PA!
Anyways, thanks for popping into to introduce yourself! If you need anything at all, please feel free to reach out!
Thanks for the warm welcome, McKenna! Only the yellow lab is ours; her name is Hope and she is just under 7 years old. The other dog is Bandit (14 y.o.); he’s a therapy dog whom we borrowed from a friend for 10 days to help Hope learn to live in a home – he’s showing Hope what to do and helping with her anxiety. Bandit is a great dog and really smart. We’ll miss him after he goes back to his home this weekend. We’re currently looking for another dog to adopt as a long-term companion for Hope.
Your dogs are really cute, especially Chubs (we have a real soft spot for pitties!)
It’s great that you’re a Buckeyes fan! The University of Michigan works a lot with The Ohio State University, especially in research computing and I.T. We’re both members of the Common Solutions Group and the Big Ten Academic Alliance. I think the rivalry is mainly a football thing
I hope you’ll be able to post more pictures of your dogs later on!
Awww therapy dogs are truly the best! Glad Hope has a buddy to show her the ropes & rebuild some of that confidence! She is beautiful, by the way When you find a new friend for her I would love to see photos!
And thank you so much! I am a really big BSL advocate Growing up with labs, like many people I was fed a lot of conflicting information about bully breeds (which honestly for part of my life did instill fear). Then 5 years ago Chubs came into my life & well, it completely changed my view on the breed. They are so intelligent, confident, loyal & compassionate. But like any dog, they require structure, training & positive reinforcement to lead a healthy life! But love hearing you have a soft spot 
Phewww, glad we can remain friends here! 
I didn’t know they worked together in some many different ways, that is amazing! Both schools are excellent in my opinion. I have a lot of family in Michigan, but have never been to the University of Michigan! Hopefully some day I can walk the campus!
And of course, I love sharing puppy photos so you can expect that!
