Meet the Team

Alex Tokar

alext [at] webcollective.coop

Programmer & Creative Influence, Founding Owner

Alex has eight years experience designing and implementing custom-built database-driven solutions for both the Internet and office intranets. He has experience in e-commerce, Zen-Cart, and Plone.  Strong ability with PHP and Python gives Alex confidence to understand complicated open source applications.  Alex’s code is clean and intuitive and his keen ability to understand whole projects quickly and accurately saves his clients time and money.  He especially delights in connecting Plone to SalesForce and MySQL.

Brian Gershon

briang [at] webcollective.coop

Technologist, Plone and Django Developer, Scrum Master, Founding Owner

Brian has been developing web-based open-source applications since 2001.  His focus and tools of choice are Plone and Django, due to their rich functionality, strong open source community, talented developers, and versatile web-development platforms.

Brian enjoys collaborative events where groups of people get together to create and improve open source software -- including recent sprints at the Plone Conference, PyCon, Django Seattle, and DjangoCon.

He was previously principal of RagingWeb.com, which was offering Plone, Zope and Python consulting and training in the Seattle area since 2001. He is co-founder of the Seattle Plone Gathering which began in January 2005, and now co-founder of the Django Seattle User Group which began June 2009.

See Brian's Evolving Bits blog or his LinkedIn profile

Bryan Wilson

bryanw [at] webcollective.coop

User Interface Designer, Programmer, Founding Owner

Bryan Wilson has been building websites since 1995.  Doing this work now with Web Collective allows him to apply his experience with Internet technologies, systems design, and visual communication to the service of sustainability and his community.   Bryan is passionate about building tools and designing environments which link people and resources in a way that facilitates understanding, makes useful connections, reduces conflict, and increases value.   

Bryan's career with the Web took him to numerous, small start-ups in Seattle as well as—briefly—Tokyo and Ireland.  From 2000 until joining Web Collective, he operated a web development and design sole proprietorship with an emphasis on PHP/MySQL, custom JavaScript, and data-driven Flash-based sites.  He is now working extensively with the Plone content management system, JavaScript, WordPress blog/CMS, user interface and graphic design, with a focus on Open Source technologies and licensing.  Bryan has an uncommon combination of abilities which bridge conventional divides between developers, designs, and managers.

Bryan has also pursued other work which combines interest in community-building, communication, and systems design.  Bryan also operated an ecotourism consulting partnership (currently on hiatus), that provided marketing, communications, and program design support to community-based ecotourism projects.  He continues to invest himself in the practice and dissemination of skills in permaculture (an ecological design system of which he is a certified designer) and edible landscaping.  He has focused these activities on the intentional community where he resides, service-based travel, and through his participation in the organization Seattle Food Not Lawns.

photo of Bryan by Meenu Bhardwaj

Derek Hoshiko

derekh [at] webcollective.coop

Activist Entrepreneur, Scrum Master, Founding Owner

Derek was an honorarium professor at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center for three years. During that time, he researched de-centralized local economic systems employing artificial intelligence and developed an application called CommunitySim with wxPython and Python.  In terms of software, he focused on algorithms and application development. Derek led an all-volunteer team of students over a five-year period to create a 3-D computer game, powered by DirectX.

He moved to the Seattle area in 2004, and became an Open Source web developer, focusing on middleware and logic using Plone, in particular. Derek also serves on the board of BALLE Seattle and is passionate sustainability and creating local living economies.  Through BALLE Seattle, Derek has volunteered with The Interra Project, Community Alliance for Global Justice, and Sustainable Cascadia.

Eric Magnuson

ericm [at] webcollective.coop

Managing Director, Founding Owner

Eric has over thirteen years of experience translating vision into actionable Internet strategies. Throughout his career he has used the Internet's democratizing power to strengthen the voice of people seeking to make positive change in the world. His passion comes from his belief in the Internet's promise for evolving humanity's consciousness towards greater partnership and collaboration. 

He started out as a programmer but over time transitioned to business and management making him one of those rare people who can easily translate technology to the non-technical and vague requirements to the developers. Every project benefits from having someone who looks critically for ways to make the effort financially, socially and environmentally sustainable.

Eric was previously principal at Magnuson Consulting where he worked mostly with progressive and local media projects to develop strong Internet business models. He also holds a MBA in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Outside of work Eric volunteers for many local groups to build community and encourage more sustainable ways of living.

See Eric's blog and LinkedIn Profile

Fulvio Casali

fulvioc [at] webcollective.coop

Activist Software Engineer, Owner

Fulvio has more than fifteen years of software development experience.  Starting on numerical simulations in theoretical physics research using parallel processing algorithms, he later spent five years developing and testing Windows client software, and launched several versions of Internet Explorer and Windows desktop components.  Later he gained his experience in web development at Amazon.com, where over four years he implemented components of the Amazon retail website payment pipeline, as well as web interfaces for sales metrics analysis, among other projects.  He also has significant experience writing plugins and extensions for major open source packages such as WordPress, TWiki and MediaWiki.

For the last three years, he has also acted as IT Director for the non-profit grassroots community organization Sustainable Ballard. Italian and german are his native languages, but he is also fluent in english and spanish

Fulvio received his M.Sc. in Physics (Diplom-Physiker) from Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany, and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Kansas State University, where he also studied and performed original research in theoretical physics.

Kevin Audleman

kevina [at] webcollective.coop

Plone & Django Developer, Partner

Kevin Audleman is a software programmer and activist who has a passion to use his technical abilities to make the world a better place. Since 2004 he has done this by partnering with non-profit organizations, helping with their needs in the areas of Customer Relationship Management systems, eCommerce and Content Management Systems, Learning Management Systems, and bulk email systems. Kevin has developed in ASP, PHP, and Python; has experience with ZenCart, Drupal, Plone, and Django.

Kevin received his B.S. with a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Washington. He received his M.S. in Computer Science from Brown University where he published work in the area of data visualization for large scale data / long running data sets.

Melody Winkle

melodyw [at] webcollective.coop

Project Management, Support, Trainer & Tester, Owner

Melody began building and managing Web sites in 1994.  Her experience  and interest center around bringing together people and information.

After obtaining a degree in library and information science from the  University of Washington, Melody got her start at Microsoft.  She  helped bring the Internet into their work world, taught Internet  classes, and built the first Web server in the Microsoft library.  In  1994, she moved to the University of Washington, where she coordinated  web projects for the University for 14 years.

As web tools matured, she led a content management selection process  which resulted in the choice of Plone.  She coordinated the content  management team, helped set the direction of the project, and  supported the users.

Melody was also a key participant in organizing the University's web  community by helping to start up the Content Management Working Group,  the Search Working Group, and the UW Plone group.  In addition, she  was a member of the UW Web Council Steering Committee. She managed  search tools for the UW, including a home-grown tool and later the UW  Google search.

She particularly values being a part of the open source world and  appreciates the rich community that contributes to Plone.

In her spare time, she enjoys gardening and is gratified to see the  lawn turning into something much more sustainable, with native plants,  food, and flowers.

Ross Patterson

In 1999, Ross Patterson surveyed the various web application frameworks available and selected Zope as the clear winner. Since then, he has been developing web applications using Zope and then Plone in a variety of sectors: non-profit, education, and commercial.  He enjoys building web applications as an expression of elegant pragmatism and pragmatic elegance.  Feel free to review Ross' skills, past projects and colleagues on his website at http://rpatterson.net.

Sherry Palmiter

sherryp [at] webcollective.coop

Graphic Designer, Brand Strategist & Right-Brain Influence, Founding Owner

Sherry has more than twenty years professional and freelance design and development experience in the Seattle area. Her expansion into the web arena in 1998 came about from her desire to meet her client’s needs. Her love for learning bolsters her belief that in order to meet and exceed clients’ expectations, continuing education must remain a vital part of career development.

She values the client relationship and deals with clients and her associates with integrity and respect. To Sherry, its important to make a solid connection with the client and team to create a design that reflects the intent and character of the project. Many of her clients continue a working relationship with her for many years, in so, showing their satisfaction with the experience.

Sherry is impassioned to bring the concept of a worker cooperative model to other businesses and is an active founding member of a local farm cooperative and helped to start a local artist co-op in late 2008.