Thanks to the incredible response to our Cascade User Conference call for speakers, this year’s event promises an exceptional lineup of over 20 sessions tailored for both Cascade CMS newcomers and advanced users.
Attendees can also look forward to an array of strategic presentations led by some of the most respected thought leaders in education marketing.
To celebrate and showcase the individuals who make this conference possible, we’re excited to introduce our Meet the Speakers Spotlight series.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll highlight the speakers behind our workshops and technical and strategic track presentations, giving you a sneak peek into their expertise and the value they’ll bring to the event.
VISIT THE CONFERENCE PAGE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CUC25
Speaker
Chris Halper is a digital problem solver. In his current role, he has found that being a jack of all trades is often better than being a master of one. His abilities are summarized by his title: "Webmaster."
He has held that position at Concordia University Wisconsin for more than a decade. Chris has designed, developed, and managed content in Cascade since 2014. When he's not absorbed in his work, you may find him on the operating end of a camera, out enjoying nature, being a captive audience of old warbirds at a local airshow, and likely 'geeking out' about the latest Star Wars series no matter where he is.
Mandalorians don't show their faces except during very special events. CUC25 is one such event. So, if you wonder what Chris's face looks like, be sure to register.
Topic
Exploring Code Compression with Velocity
Join Chris Halper as he dives into his journey of compressing CSS and JavaScript on-publish within Cascade CMS using Velocity. Discover what sparked this exploration, the challenges encountered along the way, and whether AI lent a helping hand. Most importantly, find out if this ambitious goal was achieved—and how it could impact your workflows. Don’t miss this engaging and insightful session!
When: February 19, 2025, 10:05 a.m. (EST)
Speakers
Sam Skinner is Hannon Hill's primary Product Trainer and the person who welcomes people aboard Cascade CMS. He helps familiarize new clients with the application and how to use it, tailor it to their needs and get them comfortable with using the CMS. Occasionally, Sam also writes product documentation.
Learn more about Sam in his employee spotlight.
Johannes Schuetze has been with Hannon Hill for over three years as a DevOps/Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), where he optimizes system performance and strengthens security. He streamlines processes, automates tasks, and improves monitoring to ensure reliable and efficient systems. Before joining Hannon Hill, Johannes worked in startups and sought a more stable environment. Outside of work, he is passionate about permaculture, soccer, and serves as a certified referee.
Originally from Berlin and raised in Belize, Johannes draws inspiration from his late grandfather to continuously improve himself and his work.
Learn more about Johannes in his employee spotlight.
Topic
The database mysteries of Cascade CMS
In this presentation, Sam and Johannes will explore how the database structure in Cascade CMS influences the application's functionality. The duo will provide an overview of the database architecture and its impact on working with various asset types, data definitions, and the rendering of pages for publishing. For Cloud customers, the duo will also highlight how the database is maintained to ensure high levels of uptime and other cloud-specific features.
When: February 19, 2025, 11:00 a.m. (EST)
Speakers
Joe Macri has directed the web operations and online initiatives for the Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech since 2008. He brings over two decades of web design, e-commerce, search engine optimization, e-learning development, and marketing experience to Georgia Tech.
Paul Johnson has been the lead web developer at the Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech since 2018. Beyond his technical expertise, he leads comprehensive trainings in CMS, accessibility, and web best practices across the college.
With over 20 years of experience in the non-profit and higher education sectors, Paul excels in front-end development, UI/UX design, accessibility, and building digital marketing platforms.
Topic
Building a News Hub: The Scheller News Engine in Action
The Scheller News Engine is a powerful tool that enables the university to manage and present its news and content in a centralized and customizable way.
With its robust features, the team can create tailored listing pages, connect content to faculty profiles, and support various types of content, such as podcasts and research briefs. To help manage published content, its news dashboard provides a searchable and sortable interface for content editors to review and audit article structured data values.
In this presentation, Joe and Paul will dive deeper into the features and benefits of the Scheller News Engine and explore how it helps us streamline its content management and presentation processes.
When: February 19, 2025, 11:55 a.m. (EST)
Speaker
As a web developer for Student Affairs at Auburn University, Phillip Coxwell specializes in creating and maintaining accessible websites. He resides in Opelika, AL, with his wife and two children. In his spare time, he indulges in more hobbies than anyone could ever need!
Topic
Ensuring Accessibility: Leveraging the power of Cascade CMS to improve your website's accessibility
Web accessibility is not a new topic, but it still ends up forgotten, on the backburner, or sometimes never even considered. Even when developers build websites with a focus on accessibility, many times the end users who update those sites do not understand or even know about web accessibility.
However, with Cascade CMS, the team at Auburn can incorporate web accessibility into the CMS so that no matter who is editing a page, it will remain as accessible as possible.
This presentation will touch on built-in accessibility features of Cascade CMS, dig into templates, blocks, and data definitions with Velocity, and even take a look at WYSIWYG configurations.
When: February 19, 2025, 1:45 p.m. (EST)
Speakers
Michael Duncan is the Manager of Online Marketing at Geneva College. He's been in the role since 2012 and has worked with Cascade CMS since 2014. He understands the challenges of managing a website in the higher-ed space and the importance of delivering accurate and up-to-date content while staying on top of rapidly changing web technology. He enjoys spending time with family and writing and recording Christian music.
Caleb Hyatt is a senior student at Geneva College from Greensburg, PA, studying Computer Science. He currently works part-time at Portage Learning doing Software Engineering and previously worked as an intern in Geneva's marketing and PR, where he became well-acquainted with Cascade. He works with JavaScript and Python making web applications, server backends, and databases. In his spare time, he enjoys pickleball, hiking, and programming side projects
Topic
Building a Dynamic Web Application with Cascade and VUE.js
In this presentation, Michael Duncan and Caleb Hyatt of Geneva College will walk you through a recent project that leverages the benefits of VUE.js, PHP and mySQL to shuttle content from Cascade into a simple API that feeds a single dynamic search page for News Releases, Stories and Blogs within Cascade.
When: February 19, 2025, 2:40 p.m. (EST)
Speaker
Winston Churchill-Joell is a web developer living in Stamford, CT. He has worked in web and marketing technology for over 25 years and in higher education marketing for over 20 of those years.
Currently, Winston manages a small team that covers everything related to the public web presence of Sarah Lawrence College, from content and UI/UX to backend systems integration and, of course, Cascade Server CMS. Winston strives to put accessibility and performance at the center of what he builds and remains both excited and humbled by the pace of evolution on the web that creates opportunities to learn something new every day.
Topic
Create Your Own Data Layer in Velocity
A data layer reduces complexity and streamlines references between your code and incoming data. What does this have to do with Velocity formats and page content? Winston will dig into creating a custom data interface using a hash table that sits between your incoming structured data (data definition) and your macros and display logic.
Using Cascade's internal API for maximum flexibility and performance, he'll leave behind index blocks as we create an easily addressable, lightweight structure that allows you to use dot syntax in favor of getChild() and better error handling for missing data with default values. Hash tables make these things possible, and they're fast! Data layers also provide consistency.
With this approach, changes to the structure of your data definition can be handled in your custom layer without passing those changes downstream to all your existing code, future-proofing your formats for changes still to come.
When: February 19, 2025, 3:40 p.m. (EST)
Speaker
Carrie Phillips, Ed.D, is the Chief Communications & Marketing Officer at UA Little Rock.
She is part creative, part analyst, but fully curious to solve higher education challenges. She began her career as an assistant director and moved to leading a team of creatives, to managing both a marketing and communications team at a university in the state’s capital city.
Her leadership philosophy focuses on creating brand and departmental culture, and her teams have won both national and global awards as a result.
She earned her doctorate from Texas Tech, studying how universities are using marketing to mitigate the enrollment cliff. After finishing her doctorate, she is now carrying on about higher education and leadership on her website andcarrieon.com.
Topic
The Cliff is Coming: Strategies to Prepare
We’ve heard about the enrollment cliff and its likely impact on higher education.
For her dissertation, Dr. Carrie Phillips researched how marketing strategies might help mitigate this cliff. This session shares findings from visiting with chief marketing officers about how they’re preparing.
The session will begin with a high-level overview of the enrollment cliff followed by a deep dive into how marketing strategies might lessen the impact. You’ll hear about the challenges participants face, strategies they’re exploring and best practices to consider.
As you’re looking to navigate change at your institution, this session is a great place to start.
When: February 19, 2025, 4:35 p.m. (EST)
Speakers
Kat Liendgens is Hannon Hill's Chief Executive Officer.
Before joining Hannon Hill in 2009, Kat gained extensive experience in the higher education and government sectors, holding positions such as Associate Dean and IT Director. She has frequently spoken at conferences and podcasts about topics such as content strategy, web governance, web personalization and content marketing.
Kat strives to make Hannon Hill the place with the happiest employees and the happiest customers. To that end, she often holds one-on-one feedback sessions with customers in order to understand their needs optimally.
Learn more about Kat in her CEO Spotlight.
Bradley Wagner is the VP of Engineering at Hannon Hill.
Bradley is the brains and strategic vision behind Cascade CMS and Clive. A graduate of Rice University, Bradley has been with Hannon Hill for 20 years and has seen the product through many iterations.
He always keeps clients' best interests in mind when it comes to deciding which features will be implemented in future versions of the product. Bradley's main goal is to ensure that Cascade CMS is a great product for technical users and strategic users alike.
Learn more about Bradley in his spotlight.
Topic
Cascade CMS & Clive Roadmap
The Product Roadmap has been one of the most anticipated sessions for many years. Hannon Hill’s CEO, Kat Liendgens, and VP of Product, Bradley Wagner, will share Hannon Hill's product philosophy and themes, provide a quick summary of recently released features, and give attendees a sneak peek into what’s on the horizon for Cascade CMS and Clive.
When: February 20, 2025, 10:00 a.m. (EST)
Speaker
Graham Lewis is an Account Executive at Hannon Hill, where he plays a pivotal role in enhancing the sales team's effectiveness. His expertise lies in designing and developing essential tools, including websites and slide decks, to demonstrate the benefits of products like Cascade CMS and Clive to potential clients. Graham's journey in graphic design began at Jacksonville State University (JSU), Alabama.
His career path took a significant turn while working as a Webmaster at JSU, a client of Hannon Hill. This experience, coupled with his admiration for Hannon Hill’s culture, led him to seize a career opportunity with the company nearly a decade ago. Today, Graham’s driving force is his commitment to client success, a passion that emerged from his early challenges and triumphs in web development at JSU.
Learn more about Graham in his spotlight.
Topic
Recent Releases
Join Graham as he will walk you through recently-released features, polishes, and fixes in Cascade CMS and Clive.
When: February 20, 2025, 11:30 a.m. (EST)
Speaker
Stephen Burns has worked in web development since 1999 in various capacities, with most of his experience in higher education. Before joining College of the Canyons in 2019, he worked at Antelope Valley College, starting in 2001. He has worked on everything from creating custom web applications to managing mobile apps and always enjoys learning new things.
Stephen lives in California with his wife, four kids, and their cats and dogs. When he's not working, he enjoys traveling, cruising, and playing video games.
Topic
College of the Canyons' Journey to Cascade
College of the Canyons made the migration from Modern Campus's Omniupdate to Hannon Hill's Cascade over the summer of 2024. With a team of 1, it was a huge undertaking, but able to be completed within 2 months. Walk with us through the process of our lift and shift.
When: February 20, 2025, 1:15 p.m. (EST)
Speakers
As director of Hannon Hill’s Professional Services team, Brad Kazmer oversees all professional services associated with Cascade CMS for the company’s clients. Brad provides pre-sales consulting and manages all customer projects, including initial product implementations and integrations and delegation of subsequent service requests.
Prior to this position, Brad was the general manager of a consulting practice that provided professional services on Content Management Systems and custom application development.
Fernando Blanco is a senior Web Developer on Hannon Hill's Professional Services team. He works on code and implements website designs for Cascade CMS. He also provides customized solutions as requested/needed for our Clients.
Learn more about Fernando in his employee spotlight
Topic
Managing 100s of Sites with Global Templates, Blocks and BRICKS!
Discover how Hannon Hill's professional services team revolutionized website management for a large-scale, decentralized environment.
This session showcases a custom-built solution that seamlessly manages hundreds of websites through a centralized content repository, enabling robust customization at both site and page levels.
Designed around a standardized yet flexible template, this approach delivers the perfect balance of consistency and adaptability. The solution's capabilities were rigorously tested during the successful migration of over 300 sites, achieved in an astonishing three months.
With new sites continuously joining the platform, the system now approaches the 400-site milestone, demonstrating its scalability, efficiency, and long-term effectiveness.
Join Brad and Fernando to learn how this innovative solution empowers organizations to streamline web management while maintaining brand integrity and user satisfaction.
When: February 20, 2025, 2:10 p.m. (EST)
Speaker
Jill Whitaker, Director of Web Services at Southern Utah University, is a seasoned web development professional with over 24 years of experience in higher education.
Having worked on college campuses since her teens, she possesses a deep understanding of academic institutions and their digital needs. Her expertise in web development, coupled with her passion for user experience and accessibility, has led to significant improvements in online platforms.
Outside of work, Jill enjoys running, fitness, and reading.
Topic
From Program Finders to Degree Pages
After we created an awesome Program Finder on our site, we realized that the specific degree information we were directing users to was all over the place. In this presentation I will cover how we made sure to clarify how we spoke about programs vs degrees, decided on what our Bare Minimum Content was for degrees, and the challenges of gathering this for over 100 degrees.
When: February 20, 2025, 3:10 p.m. (EST)
Speakers
Day Kibilds is the vice president of strategy at Ologie, the marketing and branding agency for education. For over a decade, Day has been leading innovative marketing work with universities worldwide, pushing institutions to use their communications as tools for equity and access.
She is an international keynote speaker on enrollment marketing, email strategy, productivity, and stakeholder management.
Day hosts Enrollify's Talking Tactics podcast and co-authored Mailed It!: A Guide to Crafting Emails that Build Relationships and Get Results.
Kat Liendgens is the CEO of Hannon Hill. Before joining Hannon Hill in 2009, Kat gained extensive experience in the higher education and government sectors, holding positions such as Associate Dean and IT Director. She frequently speaks at conferences about topics such as content strategy and content marketing. Kat strives to make Hannon Hill the place with the happiest employees and the happiest customers. To that end, she often holds one on one feedback sessions with our customers in order to optimally understand their needs.
Learn more about Kat in our CEO Spotlight.
Topic
How to Attract and Convert International Students Through Your Website
Join Day Kibilds and Kat Liendgens as both share actionable strategies to elevate your university’s digital presence and better connect with prospective international students.
This session will explore how to craft personalized content that resonates with global audiences while improving your website’s SEO to ensure international students can find you.
You’ll also learn how to create an intuitive and engaging user experience that makes your website welcoming and easy to navigate, using clear, accessible language.
Discover how to showcase the return on investment your institution offers while highlighting the support, community, and sense of belonging students can expect when they choose your university.
This keynote is perfect for higher education marketing professionals, admissions officers, website content managers, and international recruitment teams looking to strengthen their global reach.
When: February 20, 2025, 4:10 p.m. (EST)
Last Updated: Jan 16, 2025 11:00 AM
