Conference Chairs
Christie Koehler is an experienced software engineer, technical project manager, community organizer and speaker. She works at Mozilla (makers of Firefox) as a project manager on the Developer Evangelist team. Christie is Co-founder and President of the nonprofit Stumptown Syndicate. Additionally, Christie facilitates two monthly user groups for women in technology: Code ‘n’ Splode and Women Who Hack.
Reid Beels is a designer, developer, and community organizer. He’s been involved with Open Source Bridge for seven years, since its inception, and has served as conference co-chair for five. Reid co-founded Stumptown Syndicate, the nonprofit organization that runs Open Source Bridge and other community-focused technology events in Portland. He is also one of the instigators and core developers of Calagator, Portland’s tech calendar, and ePDX, a directory of the people, companies, and user groups that make up Portland’s tech community.
Technology
Kirsten Comandich runs registration and helps with tech for Open Source Bridge. She’s a web developer and one of many organizers of the local Ruby meetings. She loves to travel, is learning Japanese, and occasionally attempts to read what Japanese developers say on Twitter. Kirsten is the Stumptown Syndicate board Treasurer and also volunteers for the annual nonprofit Cycle Oregon bike ride. In 2004, she ran the Zimbabwean Music Festival at Reed College and has served on the Zimfest board of directors.
Volunteer Coordination
Amanda Lane is a sailor-mouthed art school grad with an engineer’s brain. She’s been drawing, designing, making since she can remember. Obsessed with figuring things out, making them go, mastering their complexities. She currently does marketing for SparkPRO, a tech staffing firm. This is her first Open Source Bridge, she has previously worked with PDX Startup Weekend.
Chris Freeman is a computer engineer who loves to work on web development projects when he’s not working on custom IC or FPGA designs. He developed the volunteer web app for Open Source Bridge using django/python. Chris also volunteers for annual nonprofit Cycle Oregon bike ride and PDX Startup Weekend. He helped support the 2003, 2004, 2011, 2012, and 2013 Zimbabwean Music Festivals and served on the nonprofit Zimfest Association board of directors in 2011-2013.
Logistics
Melissa Chavez is a data journalist who utilizes open source technology in her research, mapping, and reporting. She is also Outreach and Communications Chair and a board member of Stumptown Syndicate. In her free time, she documents street art, records locations of unisex and gendered restrooms in the metro area, reads noir investigative sci-fi, and admires people’s awesome hats.
Jonan Scheffler is a software engineer at New Relic, an organizer of Cascadia Ruby, and “like totally heart the interwebs.” He likes Ruby, Go, Haskell and playing with new languages.