Katie Richards is a Community Coordinator at Pantheon who spends her time working with and advocating for the amazing folk of the Pantheon Heroes project. She admits she is a type-A person who enjoys creating systems and structure and has decided to use those skills for the good of the open web, first at PostStatus.com and now with Pantheon. Katie can be found procrasti-cleaning when she needs a moment to get her thoughts in order.
When not working, Katie is wrangling three wild boys, hanging out with her husband (and favorite person of all time), Brian, evangelizing on behalf of cheese, and reading (nothing self-improving).
Michele: What do you do in the WordPress ecosystem?
Katie: Managing Pantheon’s advocacy program, Pantheon Heroes!
Michele: How did you get involved with WordPress?
Katie: I got roped into WordPress through my husband Brian. I left my full time job after our oldest son was born and we realized I had the freedom to travel to WordCamps with the baby, so I did.
I started to meet people and joined Twitter through Brian’s encouragement. Every week got an email from Twitter telling me of accounts I should be following and every week it was a list of 5 or 6 WP people. We thought that was really funny since I did almost nothing with WP at the time but we’d ping the list and tell them to follow me anyway. I eventually met a TON of amazing people who’ve become my good friends since then.
Now I work at Pantheon on the community team and spend my working hours talking to and helping out the amazing folks of the WP (and Drupal) communities.
Michele: What does the Open Source Community mean to you?
Katie: Being part of an open source community means we have a goal that we’re work toward together: improving our project to make the web more reliable, safer, and accessible to everyone across the globe. We don’t always agree on _how_ to get there and which parts of the project should be prioritized, but for the most part, having a common goal gives the community a solid basis to build those relationships that further the project, our relationships, and our businesses.
Michele: Please name some of your favorite plugins.
Katie: Not being a developer, I don’t have particular favorite plugins but as a user, and huge data nerd, I love Metorik for WooCommerce
Michele: What is your most memorable WordPress moment?
Katie: It isn’t just one moment but every time I log into one of my favorite Slack instances, the Ladies of WP, and realize that I have an incredible support network of talented, passionate, and caring women who have my back. So many warm fuzzies 🙂
Michele: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just getting started with WordPress?
Katie: Get to know people in your local WordPress community. Get to know people online. I cannot tell you of how many times a connection with another person in the WP ecosystem has solved a problem I’ve encountered.
Michele: Just for fun, share one memory that makes you proud to be a part of the WordPress Community.
Back in 2017, our house was broken into and our family’s life-long Lego collection was stolen (yes, it’s weird). The emotional support from our online family was incredible and unexpectedly, several of our internet friends mailed us replacement Lego, cards from their kids, and generally gave us hope in humanity. We’ll never forget that!
You can find Katie Richards online at the Pantheon Community.
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