LULLABOT - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Front - End Developer
- Senior Front - End Developer
Adam Varn is a front-end developer who built his first website in 1997 when he launched "Adam's Game Reviews" for a local ISP portal. The ISP paid him in video games. To earn actual money for his work, he started building sites in HTML and Cold Fusion.
In 2008, he began creating his first Drupal themes, learning the ins and outs of Drupal site-building and configuration. Before joining Lullabot, he ran his own Drupal development company, where he helped solve problems for non-profits, advocacy organizations, local government, and educational institutions.
Adam's past clients know him as a clear and timely communicator. This trait and his dedication to front-end development have made him a sought-after resource throughout the Florida Drupal community and beyond. He is a co-founder of his local Drupal Meetup group and is a frequent speaker at Florida DrupalCamp, becoming a co-organizer in 2020.
Notable accomplishments of Adam's are his leading the City of Tampa website rebuild project as a front-end developer and working as lead developer for FAU Foundation, Inc.
Adam lives in Tampa with his wife Lisa, their two children, and two cats Bisque and Elton John. When not tweaking that one last CSS property, Adam enjoys keeping up with the news, board games with friends, watching college football and soccer from around the world, and binge-watching TV shows and movies across the many, many streaming services out there.
Job Titles:
- Senior UI Designer
- Senior UI Designer / Sacramento, CA
Alycia is a designer with a strong background in visual design and creative arts. She graduated from California State University, Chico, where she was awarded the title of Most Outstanding Graphic Design Student and began her career working in print and branding. It wasn't long before she pivoted her focus to UX/UI, where she found a greater sense of satisfaction and collaboration in her work.
Alycia loves the complexity of responsive design, learning about front-end development, and seeing static designs come to life. Before joining Lullabot, she spent six years as a senior designer at a marketing agency, where she worked directly with clients to develop the user experience and visual design of their websites. She also led several print, illustration, and branding projects from concept to completion. Alycia has helped many businesses clarify their message and generate leads by designing solutions that are visually appealing to their target audience and accessible for all to enjoy.
When she's not designing, Alycia enjoys getting outdoors, traveling, creating art, thrifting, and tackling new DIY projects around her home.
Andrew is a technical architect and developer who works at the intersection of business and technology. His journey with Drupal and PHP started with a student website that needed to change a sentence in the site footer. Two months and a migration later, Andrew was thoroughly convinced of the value of Drupal and its community. He has made many contributions as deviantintegral on drupal.org to many modules and Drupal core, as well as helping to organize the Waterloo Region Drupal Users Group. Since joining Lullabot, he's helped architect and build products for clients, including the State of Massachusetts, DocuSign, and the American Booksellers Association.
Andrew enjoys going beyond Drupal and PHP, supporting Lullabot's team in DevOps, security, and project management. Most recently, he's been exploring home automation, giving him opportunities to deepen his expertise in Python and TypeScript. He also led the discovery and architecture for the American Bookseller's Association Drupal 9 e-commerce platform.
Andrew has a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Guelph. While researching there, he specialized in Human-Computer Interaction and online security. His research interests include perceptions of privacy online and visualization of security and privacy threats. Andrew lives in Guelph with his wife Julia, two daughters, and their cats.
Job Titles:
- Lead Engineer
- Lead Engineer / Minster, OH
Andy is a front-end developer and Acquia Certified Front-End Specialist. As a former science teacher, he loves finding simple and elegant solutions to complex problems. His passion for learning keeps him active in the Drupal issues queues and offering help in Drupal Slack channels. He is currently co-maintainer of the core Olivero theme and the UIKit theme. He has been involved in Drupal since 2016.
As a developer, Andy has led the site-building and theming processes for sites in various industries and sectors. These include a metropolitan transit authority and a state high school athletic association. Since joining Lullabot, he has led the automation effort of IBM masthead navigation assets, saving countless hours of manual edits, and contributed significant accessibility fixes to the web component library for IBM.
Andy lives in Minster, Ohio, with his wife, daughter, and their golden doodle Pete. In the summer, he can be found cycling, and sometimes skiing in the winter. During football season, Andy might be buried under piles of spreadsheets playing super-dynasty fantasy football.
Job Titles:
- Senior Developer
- Senior Developer / London, United Kingdom
Betty Tran has always loved coding. She knew it was something she wanted to pursue in a career from a young age- she built her first website about her favorite video games. Betty completed both her Bachelors degree in Computer Science then Masters Degree specialising in Intelligent Web Technologies at Queen Mary University of London in 2009. She started with Drupal after she landed her first job in a small consultancy building websites. Betty went on to build cross platform (iOS, Android) mobile applications using Titanium and most recently has been working on enterprise projects supporting and advising customers with their app development at Appcelerator. Betty is passionate about design patterns and always looks for ways to write clean, scalable and maintainable code.
Betty grew up in Shoreditch, the neighborhood in London with the highest concentration of artists in Europe. She eventually moved further east to enjoy long walks in the local country park with her husband, Raj and dog, Bear. Betty's hobbies include participating in hackathons, baking geeky themed cupcakes and traveling (to experience culture through food).
Job Titles:
- Senior Technical Project Manager
Job Titles:
- President
- President / Dallas, TX
Brian Skowron found his way to the web through the route of traditional media. He's always had a passion for media theory and communications, and that passion manifested itself in roles with Fox and Univision Radio.
But Brian truly earned his account chops in the technology world, selling managed hosting services for complex web applications at NeoSpire and Logicworks. Even within this nuts and bolts industry, Brian consistently found himself drawn to high-profile web projects and the unique challenges they provided. It was on these projects where Brian was introduced to Drupal and witnessed its capabilities on a large scale.
At Lullabot, Brian prefers to listen and help solve problems instead of tooting Lullabot's horn. (Well...he might toot Lullabot's horn a little bit.)
Brian lives in Dallas with his wife Adrienne, with whom he shares a love of travel, karaoke, and good food. He's a huge fan of baseball and hopes to share the game with his son, Dash.
Bryan is a back-end developer and has been involved with Drupal professionally since 2013. His ability to learn different technologies on the fly has led to him working with javascript libraries like AngularJS and more obscure databases like Raisers Edge, integrating various APIs to provide needed solutions.
While earning his BAH in Computing and Information Science and MSc in Computer Science at the University of Guelph, Bryan helped develop the first Drupal site for the Society of Computing and Information Science. Since then, he has worked with agencies on projects for a pharmaceutical company and various departments within the Government of Canada, including Defence Research and Development. He has also helped solve complicated problems for clients like Bravo, IBM, Michael J. Fox Foundation, and NewsBank.
Bryan was born on Canadian Forces Base Lahr in Germany but found his way to Waterloo, Ontario. He lives there with his wife and son, where you can find them speaking English or Cantonese (he's still learning), depending on the time of day. In some of his spare time, he enjoys collecting, constructing, and painting Warhammer 40,000 miniatures.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Board Member / Fort Worth, TX
Catherine has worked as an attorney since 2010, specializing in complex and sophisticated tax matters before the United States Tax Court and Department of Justice Tax Division. She is currently Managing Director of Brown, PC, where she deals with the typical problems of all service companies: finding new projects with current clients, managing employees, team building, and making sure the firm has adequate billable hours.
Catherine was awarded a Master of Laws in Taxation from the University of San Diego, where she was honored as a Merit Scholar. She received her Juris Doctor from the University of Washington.
Before practicing law, Catherine was a comedy sketch writer, magician's assistant, and performer on stage and television. Her unique talents contribute to her ease of communication when representing clients in tax controversy matters.
She lives in Fort Worth, TX, with her husband and daughter, with whom she sings and shouts Broadway musicals together.
Job Titles:
- Support Team Manager
- Support Team Manager / Lansing, MI
Cathy's wide breadth of experience has positioned her well for her role on the Support & Maintenance team at Lullabot. Combining thoughtfulness, technical skills, and strong attention to detail, she is a problem solver. Having worked with Drupal since 2006, Cathy is also an excellent programmer, as her many Drupal Core contributions show, and was the first recipient of the Aaron Winborn Award, which recognizes individuals who demonstrate personal integrity, kindness, and a strong commitment to the Drupal community.
Over the course of her career, Cathy has worn many hats, including Unix sys admin, computer hardware repairer, freelance Drupal site builder, Drupal 6 to 7 migration project manager, and Drupal 8 Core contributor. Additionally, she has been a Drupal developer for a large legacy Drupal-based product that combined with Drupal 8 components to serve many large scientific and academic institutions. Cathy's expertise includes coordination, investigation, and optimization for deployment, performance, and load testing.
Cathy has always brought people along on supportive, transparent, collaborative learning journeys. She has taught adults as a computer science professor, dog trainer, peer-to-peer mother support counselor, and open-source contribution mentor and organizer. Her focus in each role, including at Lullabot, is helping others achieve their goals.
Cathy previously managed the Tugboat project team that implemented automated tests and deploy previews and helped document evolving processes while working with the customer internal development team at Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF).
Cathy earned a Bachelor's(Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) and a Master's(Electrical Engineering) degree from Purdue University in Indiana. In her spare time, she loves tinkering with her high-tech garden.
Job Titles:
- Senior Technical Project Manager
- Senior Technical Project Manager / Denver, CO
Faced with the daunting re-architecture of a homegrown CMS in 2007, Chris' company found Drupal, and he hasn't looked back since. On his way to Lullabot Chris worked for local Drupal companies and as a freelance developer, including the National Renewable Energy Lab where he led a team to produce a Drupal-based tool that became a required government resource for commercial and home weatherization.
Prior to joining Lullabot, Chris developed a unique editorial layout tool on Blastr.com. He also hosted a podcast called "Behind the Screens" interviewing members of the Drupal community.
Chris was ecstatic to join Lullabot as a back-end developer on the SyFy Channel redesign. Seeing that project from the management side, Chris has gone on to many other projects as a lead developer and eventually converted that leadership into a project manager role. Chris took on the challenge of streamlining IBM's Drupal experience and most recently has been leading a team of more than 30 people as the client migrates to a brand new CMS.
Job Titles:
- Senior Front - End Developer
Job Titles:
- Senior Developer
- Senior Developer / Seville, Spain
Christian is a back-end developer and a frequent contributor to Drupal core. During the Drupal 8 development cycle, he helped make Drupal one of the best platforms for internationalized sites and contributed to the migration framework still used today. He also helped start the initiative to introduce administrative dashboards into Drupal core.
Christian spent seven years at Lingotek developing and supporting localization integrations for Drupal, WordPress, and marketing platforms like Marketo. His expertise ranges from architecture, proofs of concept, maintenance, and automation for high-availability web platforms.
At Lullabot, Christian, among other things, has played a critical role in automating one-click deployments for the State of Iowa's 40+ websites or automatic content audits with GitHub Actions. Editors across the state use the interface he developed to create dynamic content listings.
Christian speaks five languages, enjoys Lindy Hop dancing, and is part-owner of one of the oldest bars in Seville, Spain, the city he calls home.
Job Titles:
- Senior Front - End Developer
Job Titles:
- Senior Front - End Developer
Job Titles:
- VP of Marketing / Fort Worth, TX
Ellie is the VP of Marketing at Lullabot, where she directs the company's strategic marketing initiatives and cultivates partnerships to drive growth.
With a career that spans over two decades, Ellie began her journey at MIT's Technology Review Magazine. She then ventured to Los Angeles, where she executed multimedia campaigns for film releases, including The Twilight Saga and the Academy Award-winning film The Hurt Locker. Transitioning to the B2B tech sector, Ellie managed marketing communications for Bottle Rocket Studios and provided marketing consulting services to tech startups.
Ellie lives in Fort Worth and is an Advisory Board member for the Women in Leadership certification program at the University of Oklahoma. Previously, she served on the Boards of Directors for Women Communicators of Austin and Together Digital and the Advisory Board for the Digital Marketing Certification Program at Texas A&M Texarkana.
Job Titles:
- Senior Content Strategist
Job Titles:
- Senior Content Strategist
Job Titles:
- Technical Account Executive
Job Titles:
- Senior JavaScript Developer
Job Titles:
- VP Internet Technology Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
Job Titles:
- Senior JavaScript Engineer
Job Titles:
- Director of Product, Tugboat
- Director of Product, Tugboat / Atlanta, Georgia
Like many in the web development world, James came to programming through the side door. After graduating with a degree in music performance, he decided in 2004 to start a record label and began searching for tools to help him build websites for the bands he was working with. A recommendation from a fellow nerd landed him on the Drupal homepage. Drupal 4.5 was the current release at the time, and while he got a lot for free from the community, he soon found that he had quite a bit to learn in order to be able to build the simple yet unique websites his musicians wanted.
James took to web development quickly. As his skills increased and interest grew, he began learning other technologies, and built one of the first decoupled Drupal websites using a Drupal 5 backend that fed XML to a Flash frontend website. It wasn't long before James realized that he was receiving more compliments on the websites he was building than for the music, and so he hung up his record label hat and pursued a full time career in web development.
After working as the Drupal developer for Sprocket, a web design agency based in metro Atlanta, he was hired as a part-time Drupal trainer for Lullabot, then as a developer, senior developer, and then architect-all for some of the world's biggest brands. James has worked on large data migrations for The Recording Academy, engaging editorial experiences for MSNBC, and helped create a fast and stable development and deployment process for Cisco's Support Forum. He architected a decoupled user experience for Martha Stewart, and a continuous integration and deployment process for Intel, which later became Tugboat.
Job Titles:
- Senior Front - End Developer
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Design Director
- Associate Design Director / Buffalo, NY
Jen started her career as a graphic designer but fell in love with web design after working on a small in-house website back in 2003. She's now a Senior Interactive/UX designer with over ten years of experience. Jen loves creative problem-solving and the creative research process. She always takes an opportunity to learn something new, from JavaScript at work to installing a new window at home.
Jen has experience with everything from mobile apps to websites, including some branding and print work. She's used that experience at Lullabot, working with clients such as MSNBC, This Old House, the NYU School of Medicine, IBM, Carnegie Mellon University, and Ames Laboratory. Her work has ranged from creating intuitive user experiences for intricate, data-dense apps to designing navigational solutions for complex website hierarchies.
At Lullabot, she was a lead designer of Olivero, the default theme for Drupal 9, and helped Iowa State University create an intuitive user experience for an app that helps landowners understand the benefits and costs of planting prairies and trees on their land. She also worked with the NYU School of Medicine to design a navigational solution that simplified the user experience of a complex hierarchy.
Her passion for design drove Jen to earn a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Computer Art from the Rochester Institute of Technology. She's an active teacher and mentor in the design community, having leveraged her experience to teach several workshops and serving as an adjunct professor at a local college teaching web & graphic design.
In her free time, Jen enjoys gardening, sailing, cooking, and spending time outdoors. On a sunny day, you can often find her enjoying a good book on her patio. Jen and her rescue dog, Oreo, live in Buffalo, NY.
Job Titles:
- Senior Technical Project Manager
Job Titles:
- Senior Front - End Developer
Job Titles:
- Senior Technical Project Manager
Job Titles:
- Senior Technical Project Manager
Job Titles:
- Content Writer & Strategist
Job Titles:
- Senior Content Strategist
Job Titles:
- Senior Technical Architect
Job Titles:
- Senior Front - End Developer
Job Titles:
- Director of Talent Development