SYNERG STORIES
Entrepreneur, International Traveler, Web Virtuoso
Just after graduating from High Point University in 2004, John Ford started his own web development business, Aldenta, from his home office in Downtown Greensboro. While growing Aldenta, John was able to work with national brands such as The Food Network, HGTV, and DIY Network doing front end development for their websites.
Recently, John accepted a job with Automattic, the company behind WordPress: the popular blog tool and publishing platform. As of March 2010, over 23 million sites have been created using WordPress. John is currently working on VaultPress.com, a realtime backup service for WordPress.org users. Since Automattic has no central office, John can work from anywhere in the world, but chooses to live in downtown Greensboro.
In addition to his programming work, John loves giving back to the community, as well. In his ongoing desire to empower the community with knowledge to demystify the web, he co-organizes the Triad Web Meetup, a local group that gives free web-related presentations monthly.
John loves Greensboro for its big city downtown lifestyle that enables him to walk instead of drive, have access to some of the most beautiful parks, greenways and trails for his mountain biking fixes, close proximity to friends and family, and, of course, its international airport. Since John is a world traveler he might be here today, but, quite literally, gone tomorrow - visiting southeast Asia, Russia, or even hanging out with family Down Under.
Photograph by Lloyd Budd



