Episode 109: Reed Gustow

Introducing Reed Gustow

Reed Gustow is active in his local WordPress community. A local meetup organizer and former WordCamp organizer, Reed has been building websites and teaching WordPress for a long while now. Reed calls Philadelphia home.

Show Notes

Website | deltaangel.com

Twitter | @tangofoxtrot

Preferred Pronouns | He/Him

Episode Transcript

Tara: This is Hallway Chats, where we meet people who use WordPress.

Liam: We ask questions, and our guests share their stories, ideas, and perspectives.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is episode 109.

Tara: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Tara Claeys.

Liam: And I’m Liam Dempsey. Today we’re joined by Reed Gustow.

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

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today we’re joined by Reed Gustow. Reed is active in his local WordPress community. A local meetup organizer and former WordCamp organizer, Reed has been building websites and teaching WordPress for a long while now. Reed calls Philadelphia home. Welcome, Reed. We’re glad you’re here today. Thanks for joining us.

Reed: Hello, Tara. Hello, Liam.

Liam: Hey, Reed. Thanks for joining us. Great to see you again, old friend. Tell us a little bit more about yourself beyond what Tara shared, please.

Reed: Well, I’m a lifelong Philadelphian although I went to school in New York. Went to NYU. I did live in Boston for a couple of years, but it’s not anywhere near as good as Philadelphia. I mean that sincerely. It’s not being facetious.

For most of my life, I worked for the American Red Cross Blood Services. Blood donation is still something that’s very important to me. I helped organize blood drives at my co-working space in the hall, which works with National Mechanics to do blood drives three times a year. That’s something that’s not WordPress, but very important to me. I retired about eight years ago from the Red Cross, and I’ve been mostly doing WordPress since then, and lately into photography.

Liam: Reed, you and I have known each other a few years through our Philadelphia WordPress community.

Reed: Yeah.

Liam: I think I described you at one point by saying, “There’s nobody in Philadelphia who has a computer who doesn’t know Reed.” You are very, very active, not just in the WordPress community, but also, as you noted, in your local meetup and other tech communities. Would you share a little bit about the other communities that you engage with and support and take part of?

Reed: Sure. That was a very flattering and grossly exaggerated statement, but I’ll take it. Well, for a long time, until last December, I was on the board of the Philadelphia Area New Media Association – PANMA. PANMA is an organization that’s been around since 1996 that serves to connect people in the digital development community – anyone who works with websites. That has grown to be so pervasive and ubiquitous that it encompasses many, many fields. That was not the case seven years ago. I was on the board. I was the treasurer, and I helped plan events and scope out the way we would operate. That was something I spent a lot of time with.

I’m also was still on the board of the Philadelphia Area Computer Society, which is an old fashioned user group that started in 1976 when people were making computers such as they were with kits and soldering irons, and that kind of thing. Very old school. It’s kind of faded out over the years. User groups used to be about the only way that people who are not experts in the field could gain expertise and share information. But since the internet has become the way we all live,