Jeff founded Bust Out Solutions in 2005 with the vision of assembling a team of highly-talented individuals who share his love of technology and his passion for design. The Bust Out team has also created a payment management platform called Pearl which launched as a separate company in 2016. Jeff has a degree in molecular biology, a background in software engineering, and he also spends time chasing his three young children around.

Currently, a Product Manager at Data Curation Experts, Shanita John joined this small, agile team of open-source software developers with a decade of experience (yikes) as a Senior Project Manager in the fields of interactive design and advertising. 

Though she counts it a privilege to have worked at large agencies, Shanita is happiest in smaller, close-knit teams because of their ability to adapt readily and embrace iteration.

Mercedes Cox is the Principal Engineer and Product Owner for Target’s Product Security program. She has over 10 years experience in both security and engineering, with a passion for automated security testing and promoting other women in tech. Mercedes moved to the Twin Cities in 2008 with her husband and boxer dog Molly.

Kristina Durivage is a front end engineer by day and hardware hacker by night. She lives in Minneapolis.

Tom has over 15 years of experience as a creative director, animator, designer and web developer. Equally passionate about design and code Tom has an innate ability to understand projects from varying perspectives.

Amanda Lagrange is the CEO of Tech Dump and Tech Discounts, the linked social enterprise that creates jobs for people with barriers to employment through electronics recycling, refurbishing and retail sales. An Indiana native and proud millennial, Amanda graduated from Indiana University.

Tamara Temple is seasoned software developer with a lot of experience in web development, server software, devops, and testing. She has always been passionate about helping people learn about and improve their skills in programming, tooling, and organizing. Tamara currently leads a weekly drop-in study group for women learning how to code. Tamara attended two Hack-the-Gap weekends as a participant, and is looking forward to mentoring teams this year.

Eryn O’Neil is an independent PHP developer and tech lead. Coming from the agency world, she has worked on everything from e-commerce and online promotions, to sites for rad Minnesota organizations (shoutout to NiceRide and Doomtree!), to developing a proprietary framework and CMS. Her philosophy is to build software by placing humans first: both the people who will use it and the developers who build it with you (and maintain it afterward). Based in Minneapolis, Eryn spends most of her free time blues dancing, flying on a trapeze, and wishing it weren’t snowing.

Fred Deichler has worked in the technology industry for the past 18 years spending time both in managing hardware repair and custom software development. Currently, the Project Manager at the OurFamilyWizard website Fred oversees the coordinated development and improvement of a SaaS web solution with supporting native iOS and Android applications. In his off time, Fred is a youth community soccer coach and is working on his BS in Management from the University of Minnesota, Crookston.

Inspired at an young age, one of Jessica's earliest memory is of playing Lode Runner with her dad on his Commodore 64. As a teenager, she got into open source software and started hacking online multiplayer games, quickly discovering that she had much more fun programming than playing! With over 15 years of experience as a Software Engineer working with interdisciplinary teams, she is versed in a variety of web and accessibility standards, has a strong background in the LAMP stack, and is fluent in PHP, python, JavaScript (jQuery/prototype libraries), C, Java, and HTML/CSS. When not basking the glow of a computer, she can be found romping around with her standard poodles, Jasper and Gideon.