Dale Dougherty is the founder, President & CEO of Maker Media, Inc. in Sebastopol, CA. Maker Media produces Make Magazine, which launched in 2005, and Maker Faire, which was held first in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006. MAKE has been the catalyst for a worldwide Maker Movement that is transforming innovation in industry, hands-on learning in education and the personal lives of makers of all ages. MAKE invites everyone to become a maker, and integrate creative goals with technical skills. Dougherty was a co-founder of O’Reilly Media, where he was the first editor of their computing trade books, and developed GNN in 1993, the first commercial website. He coined Web 2.0 in 1993. MAKE started at O’Reilly Media and spun out as its own company in January 2013. He grew up in Louisville, KY.
Sherry Huss is Vice President for Maker Media, Inc. overseeing Publishing, eCommerce, and Events. She is instrumental in the management, and production of Maker Faire and is focused on growing the MAKE brand throughout the Maker ecosystem. She has over 20 years of technology marketing and event experience and has held senior management positions at MediaLive International, Key3Media, Ziff-Davis, and Softbank. Product marketing and live events have been a focus for Sherry who was instrumental in launching and managing successful technology and consumer events such as Sun’s JavaOne, Oracle’s iDevelop, O’Reilly Media’s Web 2.0 Summit and Dwell on Design. She is passionate about making and the Maker community.
Mark Frauenfelder is the Editor-in-Chief of MAKE magazine, and the founder of the popular Boing Boing blog. He was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998, and was the founding editor-in-chief of Wired Online. He’s the author of six books. His latest book is Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World.
Melissa Morgan is the Content Director. She began her career managing the Amazon.com homepage back in the 90s when they only sold books and everyone wrapped presents during the holiday rush. She still regrets leaving before her stock options had fully vested. From there, she moved on to manage content, software, and web development for online startups as well as major rock band and fashion industry websites.
Jason Babler is the Creative Director. He has extensive experience managing creative teams in media and publishing. He has designed and managed projects for some of the largest tech companies, sports teams, video game and film studios today. In addition to traditional media experience he has worked developing video games and loves to sculpt traditionally.
Vickie Welch is the Senior Marketing Director. Vickie has spent her career in media marketing for leading technology print and online publishers, among them Ziff-Davis, IDG, Upside and CMP Media. During her fifteen years with Ziff-Davis, she held group marketing director and VP titles for the Mac Publishing Group which included Macworld Expo and the Consumer Media Group. Prior to joining MAKE in February, 2012, she worked with startup media companies such as Pandora and Ecast and ecommerce site FinditParts.com to develop strategies to monetize content, grow audience and customer bases, create new ad products, and leverage market research for new products and competitive positioning.
Parker Thomas is Project Director. He is an entrepreneur and product manager who has started and sold two companies. A passionate maker, he’s built two airplanes and flown them around the country. He’s now concentrating on building two makers named Hana and Kobi and helping them build treehouses, zip lines,decks, play structures, go carts, ponds and anything else they want to build. He is a founding member of the design team for Urban Montessori Charter School, a new charter school in Oakland based on the teachings of Maria Montessori, arts integration and design thinking.
Katie Kunde is the Senior Sales Manager. She joined the MAKE team in 2006 to help produce the first Maker Faire. Today, she works with top national brands and leading companies to develop strategies to effectively market to the growing and influential maker movement. Her team leverages the strength of MAKE’s core media properties to customize integrative marketing opportunities for diverse clients, from automotive to financial to CPG and high-tech. She enjoys making wine with her husband and is an avid equine enthusiast.
