Who better to enhance the Las Vegas WordCamp experience than a guy who co-organizes WordCamp in Orange County? Jeffrey Zinn has been a web designer since 1996, and in 2004 he and Brandon Dove founded Pixel Jar, a WordPress development firm.

Zinn is also a lead developer of the AdSanity WordPress ad management plugin, but when he’s not working on WordPress, Zinn likes to surf, hike and travel. We got a chance to chat with the expert who is looking forward to playing KISS Monster Mini Golf during his visit to Vegas.

Jeffrey Zinn
Website: http://pixeljar.net

WCLV: What do you love most about WordPress?

JZ: The Community. I love how positive and supportive the WordPress community is to everyone from noobs to veterans.

WCLV: Who is YOUR WordPress hero and why?

JZ: Brandon Dove is my WordPress hero. I know that’s an easy answer as he is my development partner, but it’s still true. He’s already plenty smart and a great programmer, but his ability to so quickly learn and incorporate new knowledge into current projects amazes me. For him, it is never about what he is going to try on the next project. He is always pushing himself to improve his know-how and workflow on the this project.

WCLV: What are your favorite WordPress plugins?

JZ: My favorite plugin is Image Widget from Modern Tribe. It’s such a simple concept, but as a widget it is incredibly versatile. And I really like that the developers used the core image management tool, which many image based plugins fail to do.

WCLV: What do you love about Las Vegas?

JZ: The museums and attractions off The Strip. It is strange to me that few visitors ever leave the casinos and hotels. The whole city of Las Vegas is Vegas’ hidden gem. There are all kinds of brilliant museums from super swanky to super kitsch. One of my favorites is the National Atomic Testing Museum.

Editor’s Note: The Speaker Spotlight post you are about to read will inevitably be the most biased one, as it is written by the speaker’s wife.

Not only is Dan Birlew handsome, debonair, stylish and muscular, the man can also speak geek with a hypnotic and passionate fluency. You may not understand a thing he’s saying, but you’ll be inspired to learn.

Redefining what it means to be a nerd, Birlew authored over 70 video game strategy books before taking a turn in his career to become a web developer. He builds sites mainly on WordPress, PHP, Java and ASP.net and is currently working for Caesars Entertainment. His Las Vegas WordCamp presentation is titled “WordPress and Masonry: Brick by Brick” and will teach developers how to create a WordPress site designed with a column layout style much like Pinterest.

Dan Birlew
Websites: http://DanBirlew.com and http://LasVegasManBlog.com

WCLV: What do you love most about WordPress?

DB: Simplicity of functionality, documentation! And the abundant amount of tasty plugins.

WCLV: What are your favorite WordPress plugins?

DB: Regenerate Thumbnails, Jetpack, Google XML Sitemaps, Yet Another Related Posts Plugin, GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools, Infinite Scroll, LayerSlider WP, WP-Emoji, WP-PageNavi.

WCLV: What are some of your favorite WordPress-built websites?

DB: Mashable, PlayStation blog, The Sartorialist, css-tricks.com.

WCLV: Who is YOUR WordPress hero and why?

DB: John Hawkins! Man, that guy just won’t give up….

WCLV: What are your plans for surviving the zombie apocalypse?

DB: Feed John Hawkins to the hordes while I sprint to the exit!