The Team

Mitchell Kimbrough

Founder & CEO

since 2000

Mitchell has been writing code for 30 years, with expertise in PHP, MySQL, Javascript and HTML. He’s happiest when creating solutions for his customers, and enjoys building and maintaining a strong team culture that rewards excellence of craft, honesty in relationships and humor in day-to-day practice. Educated at Stanford right before the dot com bubble burst, Mitchell graduated with degrees in philosophy and religious studies, then worked for a tech start-up and learned how NOT to run a company. He began to wonder if it was possible to create a sustainable tech company, built for long term prosperity and operating with integrity and a dedication to excellence. So he decided to try an experiment - Solspace. The experiment has exceeded his wildest expectations for more than two decades now. Mitchell lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two young children who keep him impossibly busy and perpetually in motion.

Ivars Bariss

Director of Operations

since 2016

Ivars has been working as a professional software engineer and web developer since 2013, and joined the Solspace team in 2016. He earned his degree in Computer Science from the University of Latvia in 2015, and is a co-founder of WodBattles.net. Ivars enjoys inventing, building and implementing creative online solutions to real world problems. As a software engineer at the technology startup Mintos, Ivars helped develop a successful peer-to-peer lending platform based on a Symfony 2 framework. Ivars has skills and experience with MySQL, SQL, JavaScript, C++, HTML, Wordpress, Bootstrap, CSS, Java, Android SDK, and has developed with Algolia, Yii /Yii2 PHP, Symfony2, FuelPHP, PHPUnit, OpenCV, and Craft CMS. Ivars loves living in Riga, Latvia, and on those rare occasions when he can take time away from work, he loves playing tennis and traveling.

Kelsey Martens

Director of Products

since 2007

Kelsey oversees all activity related to Solspace software, including product development, documentation, and customer support. His favorite part is collaborating with the team for the invention of new software and making major enhancements to existing software. He lives in cold Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with his wife, two daughters, six guinea pigs, and two cats.

Missy Moyer

Director of Finance & Administration

since 2008

Missy is a self-described “classical music-loving, animal-loving country bumpkin” who started out in Austin, Texas, and moved on to life in small-town Arkansas. She is the dependable and detail oriented administrative heartbeat of the Solspace team, juggling budget tracking, time logs, invoicing, maintenance of management resources, sales and project support, and ensuring clients are kept informed and happy. She also serves our clients as the team’s intrepid Content Steward, ensuring that new and migrated information on the site is complete, coherent and correct. Missy’s true passion is for animal rescue and adoption, and her own beloved tribe of rescue cats and dogs. She loves country life and is still very happily based in small-town Arkansas, where the glare of the city doesn’t block out the stars at night.

Eva Passalacqua

Designer & Developer

since 2005

Eva has been designing and developing web sites with Solspace since 2005, and has been working in web and application development since 1994. She brings an eclectic assortment of skills as an artist, designer, coder, writer and editor to her client projects. When she’s not in front of the screen making digital things, Eva can be found cooking Indian food for a crowd, playing music and games with friends, making and remaking clothing, doing something messy with clay, or playing with molten glass. Eva lives with her family in Western Massachusetts.

Nicolas Bottari

Developer

since 2011

Computers have been part of Nicolas’ life since he created mini-games and programs with Basic in elementary school. While pursuing a post-graduate degree in biochemistry at McGill University, his knowledge of genetic and biological “programming logic” led him into the world of HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL and related tools and frameworks. The transition between the biotech and computer tech worlds included eight years of living in Japan, where he learned the culture and language first while teaching English, then through his work as a manager of office networks, servers, and websites. This experience in Japan, plus his native mastery of French and English (and a speck of Italian and Spanish) led to expertise in resolving encoding and language-specific issues. Nicolas cherishes good work relationships and friendly, quality customer service. Originally from Montréal, Canada, Nicolas lived in Hokkaido, Japan with his wife and two children for many years, and is now happily back in the Montreal area.

John Henry Donovan

Developer

since 2017

John Henry has always had an interest in computers and began working with them centuries ago on his very first machine, a Sinclair Spectrum 48k. Based in Cork, Ireland, John Henry is known in the web community for his depth of experience with ExpressionEngine CMS, though he is also quite handy with Craft CMS these days. He was previously employed as a Technical Support Specialist for EllisLab (the creators of ExpressionEngine), and ran the ExpressionEngine resource site EE-HUB for many years. John Henry, originally a graduate in Industrial Design, is a self-taught full stack developer and designer. He lives in the Irish countryside with his continuously upbeat wife and fights for office space with 4 children in his busy kitchen.

Gustavs Gūtmanis

Lead Software Developer

since 2015

Based in Riga, Latvia, Gustavs has been with the Solspace team since 2016, and has been working professionally as a developer since 2009. In addition to speaking three languages (English, Russian and Latvian) Gustavs has expertise in many tools and technologies as well, including Ruby on Rails, Swift, React.js, Python, MySQL, CSS, JavaScript, ActionScript, Photoshop, Git, HTML 5, Node.js, Gulp.js and many more. Gustavs has developed everything ranging from tiny scripts, to web sites, to CMS engines and plugins, to mobile applications and games, and is an experienced full stack developer. When he’s not working on solving development challenges, Gustavs likes to work out, read books, have fun with his two sons, meet friends and have a good time in general.

Michiko Swiggs

Designer & Developer

since 2011

Based in Seattle, Michiko has been working in design and web development since 1999, providing user-focused interactive design and front-end development for web and mobile devices. With expertise in ExpressionEngine and WordPress development and implementation for all types of websites, and a broad and flexible set of skills, Michiko provides solutions that work, look great, and accomplish business needs. In all of her design and development work, her philosophy is to find patterns, solve problems, and always advocate for elegance. Michiko holds a degree in Electronic Music Production and Experimental Film, loves vintage synthesizers, crazy cats, and traveling the world to find magical places.

Scott Hutcheson

Strategist

since 2018

Scott is one of Solspace's beloved outside partners. We bring his valuable process to bear on larger strategic explorations and discoveries with those of our clients who need it.

Scott began The Strategic Web in 2015 and was working in strategy advising for more than a decade prior to that. Much of that work was split between his employment as a strategist in leadership positions at a few agencies in the Nashville, TN area. His agency work began focusing on content and UX strategy deliverables. Eventually, his work with clients expanded to include a broader business and innovation strategy offering. He's also spent the past decade acting as an independent advisor on a contract basis prior to founding The Strategic Web.

Scott developed the Strategic Positioning Spectrum as a perspective on the nature of work and strategic progress. Its reasoning is founded in his personal experiences with clients and the wise counsel of colleagues he's worked with over the years. Academically, it relies strongly on the ideas of Daniel Kahneman, Barry Schwartz, Michael E. Porter, Howard Gardner, Kristina Halvorson, Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen.

Scott and his wife live in the Nashville, TN area, but he has traveled often to work with clients throughout the country. He's worked with clients overseas too, but hasn't gotten the opportunity to travel to them…yet.

If you ever want him to stop talking about business or strategy, just ask him about his Staffordshire Terrier, Hazel. That’s sure to derail the conversation into an impromptu slideshow of his dog.

David Estrada

Developer

since 2020

David came to the Solspace team as a seasoned full-stack PHP developer. From a very early age he was fascinated with computers, which led him to study Computer Science. He fell head over heels in love with web development and has never looked back. David has spent many years working as a freelance developer, building internal and external apps and tools for a wide variety of clients. He is experienced with modern PHP and Javascript frameworks like Laravel and Vue JS for web development, as well as TailwindCSS, Laravel Forge, Statamic and Craft CMS.

David is based in Guatemala City, and when he’s not happily buried in code, he enjoys cycling, kayaking, weight training, gaming, and a nice cold cerveza at the end of the day.

Sean Delaney

Developer & Software Engineer

since 2021

A full-stack developer for nearly 20 years for a variety of worldwide clients, including Zaengle, Opus 2 International, Under Armour, and Inter National Bank, Sean brings a wealth of skills and experience to the Solspace team, including fluency with vanilla Javascript and frameworks such as React JS and Vue JS, Typescript, OOPHP and frameworks such as Craft CMS, Laravel and ExpressionEngine. Additional skills include HTML, SCSS / TailwindCSS, MySQL, Java Programming with Spring and Hibernate, Docker, GraphQL and Testing to name a few.

Sean started his own business, DelaneyMethod in 2013 after years as a lead developer. The name came from the joking term “Delaney’s method” that his co-workers used to describe how Sean would effectively tackle and resolve difficult issues. Originally from Tipperary, Ireland, he now lives in Bishopton near Glasgow, Scotland with his wife, two kids, and two dogs. His favourite coffee bean is Brazilian.

Ross Kenney

Developer

since 2022

Ross has been building websites and web apps since 2007 and was a longtime Solspace fan before getting recruited in 2022. He is having a blast as part of the team, whether he’s diving into challenging new projects, managing tricky integrations, or patiently debugging complicated code. He’s served a very wide variety of clients, including local governments, large universities, and numerous businesses. One of his favorite projects was the USA Cycling site, he loved being a part of their mission to support all things bicycle, including the US Olympic teams. Ross has a long list of solid skills, including Craft CMS, Laravel, SQL, JSON, Vue JS, TailwindCSS, PHP, HTLM5, SCSS, Vanilla Javascript, Webpack, and Vite. He’s experienced with DevOps, having set up servers and CI/CD on AWS, DigitalOcean and Linode. When he’s not writing code, Ross loves to be outside snowboarding in the winter, and golfing, biking and hiking in the warmer months. Sometimes he disappears into the garage to work on his 2002 JetSki, which is definitely getting back in the water someday.

Melissa (Mel) Connolly

Developer

since 2022

Mel finds it surprising that she’s been designing and developing websites for 20 years since she’s very sure she’s only 29 years old. Her strong design background, code writing chops, and passion for customer service have helped her deliver high-impact websites for small businesses, Fortune 500 companies, and everything in between. Mel’s got a special knack for taking her clients’ big complex ideas and breaking them down into actionable steps so she can make them into a reality. She perseveres, pivots, and pirouettes as necessary to get the job done exceptionally well. When she’s not pushing pixels, Mel may be found in her studio happily pushing paint and creating vibrant heavily textured paintings. She is also deeply committed to animal welfare and has fostered and adopted many four-legged friends. Mel lives in North Carolina with her husband, many dogs, and a couple of very confident cats.

Eric Miller

UX and Design Partner

since 2015

Eric Miller Design is an interactive design studio focused on user experience, traditional marketing websites, commerce, interfaces and web-based applications. Their work focuses on usability and the communication of clear messages through intuitive interfaces, logical solutions and attention to detail. The studio has 22 years of experience and adapts and grows their small team based on the needs of a project. Eric spent nine years as the in-house web designer and developer for Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). He is also a writer and was responsible for the graphic design section on about.com, a NY Times company, from 2007 to 2012. Eric Miller Design also designs and produces UX Kits (https://uxkits.com), a collection of physical and digital products for creative professionals that help facilitate the design process.