Profile:

I'm a Backdrop and CiviCRM developer with demonstrated experience upgrading complex websites and porting needed modules from Drupal 7 to Backdrop. My work has allowed me to become deeply involved in the Backdrop community, with an extensive web of productive relationships. I see enormous potential in Backdrop to serve a large segment of the Drupal 7 market that is adverse to upgrading to newer versions of Drupal, while also appealing to organizations outside of the Drupal orbit. I have long been committed to the open source model, releasing code back to the community as much as possible to help grow the ecosystem. I find it rewarding to build high-quality websites for organizations working toward the common good.

Backdrop Highlights:

  • I have been a core committer for the Backdrop project since summer 2021.
  • I have ported, created, and/or currently maintain >115 Backdrop modules, including Paragraphs, Entity Plus, Image Effects, Conditional Fields, Organic Groups, Content Access, XML Sitemap, and Rules.
  • I have extensive experience upgrading sites from Drupal 7 to Backdrop, migrating sites from Wordpress, and creating Backdrop sites from scratch.
  • I have served as a presenter or discussion leader at Florida Drupal Camp (2025), a number of virtual Stanford Web Camps, and various sessions at Backdrop LIVE "unconferences" on the topics of Paragraphs, CiviCRM, and various case studies.
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I have built dozens of Backdrop sites over the years, many of them upgraded from Drupal 7.

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Employment Highlights:

Aten Design Group
Technical Lead (2022 - present)

  • Primary Backdrop developer on the team.
  • Maintain, extend and refactor a complex web application in ongoing sprint/release cycles.
  • Upgrade a variety of sites from Drupal 7 to Backdrop and provide ongoing support and training to client teams.
  • Use discretionary time to help move the Backdrop project forward with core contributions and porting or maintaining contrib projects such as the Gin admin theme and Paragraphs.

Stuart Center
Director of the CEDC Office (2012 - 2022); Senior Designer (2003 - 2012)

  • Manage a small mission-driven team while serving as the primary web developer (and the only Backdrop/CiviCRM developer).
  • Charted CEDC's course for web development, using and experimenting with a variety of systems before focusing on Backdrop and CiviCRM as a specialty.
  • Oversee web projects from start to finish, including consultations with clients, scoping projects, wireframes, project management, theming, and development.
  • Design work for both web and print using Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign primarily).
  • Serve a wide variety of non-profit partners including WildAid, American Friends Service Committee, Catholic Mobilizing Network, Williams Syndrome Association, World Federation of United Nations Associations, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, and others.

Education Highlights:

  • Dordt University, May 1998
    B.A. (Graphic Design and Computer Science)