CEO + Lead Developer
As CEO and Lead Developer at Bethink, Beth architects website builds, engineers integrations, codes themes, and leads a team making digital different. Beth saw firsthand through her career building websites how managing one could be a scary and frustrating experience for clients — and launched Bethink to expand the work she had been doing independently with big and small clients to build websites that they could manage and sustain on their own.
Beth learned how to code while working in communications at the Feminist Majority Foundation, coding HTML emails, templates, donation pages, and custom forms. She went on to become their internal web developer — maintaining front-end code and visual integrity for their seven websites and four blogs, and leading multiple website designs for their various properties — before bringing her WordPress expertise to the agencies APCO Worldwide and CHIEF (now IntelliBridge). As well as designing and building websites for clients including Nestle, Mars, Johnson & Johnson, the World Bank, and CSX, she also led the front-end development of APCO’s own website. (And won an APCO A Award along the way.)
Alongside her full-time work, Beth also cultivated an independent practice as a designer and developer, crafting custom websites and other digital collateral for small businesses, nonprofits, campaigns, and individuals — and served for six years on Automattic’s Special Projects Team, where she specialized in complex AA and AAA-rated accessible builds.
Driven by a passion for open-source technology and diversity in tech, Beth was a founding member of DCFemTech, a collective of women in tech groups, and was an original organizer of two flagship events for the organization: Inspire, a networking skills event, and Hack for Good, a hackathon benefitting DC-based non-profits and independent community projects.
Beth is a longtime contributor to the WordPress open source project and a devoted member of the WordPress community. She has served as a co-organizer for the WordPress DC Meetup for nearly a decade, is a co-organizer of WordCamp DC, and was a team representative for the WordPress Training Team for three years. Her first contribution to WordPress Core was to the Twenty Twenty One default theme in WordPress 5.6 — the platform’s release led by a historic all women and non-binary release squad.
Beth writes and speaks regularly about web development, technology, and the social issues at the core of the industry at conferences and events around the country. She is a regular speaker at WordCamps and has spoken at WordCamp US twice.
Beth earned BAs in both Psychology and in Women’s and Gender Studies from American University and a certificate in Web Design from the Corcoran College of Art & Design. She is always enrolled in at least one continuing education course in printmaking, graphic design, or painting from the Art League of Alexandria, Discover Graphics Atelier, and/or the Rhode Island School of Design. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with her husband, three kiddos, and two cats, and is partial to Darjeeling, English Breakfast, and Oolong teas (and her self-warming tea cup!).