Introducing Birgit Pauli Haack

Birgit Pauli Haack has been a web builder for the last 22 years and is still fascinated by it. Right now, she is learning JavaScript for the third time and evangelizes for the upcoming release of Gutenberg in WordPress core. By day, she runs her own web agency Pauli Systems.

Show Notes

Website | Pauli Systems

Website | Gutenberg Times

Website | WP4Good

Twitter | @bph

LinkedIn | Birgit Pauli Haack

Instagram | IDX

Podcast | NP Tech Projects

Episode Transcript

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 42.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today, we’re joined by Birgit Pauli-Haack. Birgit has been a web builder for the last 22 years and is still fascinated by it. Right now, she is learning JavaScript for the third time and evangelizes for the upcoming release of Gutenberg in WordPress core. By day, she runs her own web agency Pauli Systems. Hi and welcome, Birgit. Nice to see you.

Birgit: Hi, everybody. Hi, Tara and Liam. Thank you so much for inviting me on your podcast. I listen to it quite often and it’s good to hear the personal side of people. I love it, thank you so much for inviting me.

Liam: Well, thank you for that very flattering welcome. We’re just so happy to have you here today, Birgit. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself that Tara didn’t share with us?

Birgit: Well, I live in Naples, Florida. This time of year, I shared this with a few hundred thousand people and more that come as snow birds to Naples and stayed the winter here. I’m married for 25 years and my husband works in IT but for a big company, we have no kids and we love to travel together. I do a lot of things besides my web business, and I think it will come up throughout the questions and answers here.

Tara: I look forward to it, let’s start by acknowledging your accent and where you come from and where you started, not only physically in terms of where you grew up, but where you started in your path towards WordPress. I’m leaving that really open for you.

Liam: And I’m just going to interject and say, I hear your accent, too, Tara Claeys.

Tara: Thank you.

Liam: Go ahead, Birgit.

Birgit: We immigrated to United States 20 years ago in 1998. That’s where my accent comes from, it comes from Germany. Born and raised in Munich and that’s where I actually joined as a hobby a free internet service called– there was CitizenNet in Munich and that’s where I first learned how to build websites and curate sites. Journey to WordPress was quite a few years later. 2009, I started doing it seriously, researching it for a non-profit internet service provider that had services for non-profits, amongst them content management systems. Back then, it was started in 2009 or something like that. By the time of 2010, it was highly outdated and the developer disappeared or had other things to do as a volunteer, so we had to make a choice on, “Okay,