It’s a sad day for the WordPress community. I write this with a heavy heart, that Jesse Petersen — a Genesis Preferred Developer, theme and plugin developer, and so much more — lost his fight with Cystic Fibrosis today.
The LOSS of a Great WordPress Community Member — Jesse Petersen!
Ahmad Awais
He was a WordPress user since 2005, a developer since 2008 and a friend to many.
Can you look over your life and say you’d be leaving those connected to you better off having known you? If not, start today.
— Jesse Ⓦ Petersen (@jpetersen) July 3, 2017
I’m pretty sure; I was better off knowing him! Many would agree!
I had built this plugin to say #Hi to the WP Crowd members, and Jesse was one of us. This is what I saw when I came to write this post in the WordPress admin panel. You’ll be missed! :(
Jesse Petersen#
I didn’t personally, know Jesse — but he was a great member of our community. I am not sure what to say. I got to know him better only after he went public with his Cystic Fibrosis genetic disease. I feel like telling you all about him in a few points below.
It’s my way to remember him! Jesse:
- He was a family man — a husband and a father to two adorable boys
- Most known for being a Genesis Preferred Developer
- A WordPress user since 2005, a developer since 2008 and a friend to many
- A plugin developer. His latest plugin was GenesisThe.me After Entry Widget Pro that added a widget after a post.
- He also has five plugins in the WordPress repository including Genesis Latest Tweets and Stealth Login Page. His last commit was only five days ago. :(
- A proud WordCamp Speaker, you can find him talking at WordPress.tv
- A member of The WP Crowd and was on many of our podcasts.
- He was also a Treehouse instructor
- More about him at this WCUS blog post
- Jeff wrote about Jesse on WPTavern
What Can We Do?#
I wish if the WordPress foundation — or a non-profit fund could be set up for folks like him. The awesome WordPress community could be more awesome that way!
Support His Family#
Jesse leaves behind a wife and two precious boys who will be going through a lot in the upcoming days. They also could use all the help they can get for last expenses and going forward. Ben Meredith has setup a Give fundraiser to help with the last expenses and for the family going forward.
Prayers for him and his family. I hope I can urge you to support Jesse’s family →
It’s the least we can do, for all his contribution towards our lives and the WordPress community!
Founder & CEO of ⌘ Command Code coding agent with taste. Founded Langbase.com, AI cloud to build, deploy, and scale AI agents with tools & memory · Creator of Command.new.
"Awais is an awesome example for developers" — Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.
NASA Mars Ingenuity Helicopter mission code contributor 8th GitHub Stars Award recipient with 5x GitHub Stars Award (Listed as GitHub's #1 JavaScript trending developer). Google Developers Expert Web DevRel.
Ex VP Eng (DevTools & DevRel) Rapid · Google Developers Advisory Board (gDAB) founding member · AI/ML/DevTools Angel Investor (Replit, Resend, Daytona, Gumroad and you?) ❯ AI/ML Advisory Board San Francisco, DevNetwork.
Award-winning Open Source Engineering leader authored hundreds of open-source dev-tools and software libraries used by millions of developers, including Shades of Purple code theme and corona-cli.
❯ Read more about Ahmad Awais or come say hi on 𝕏 @MrAhmadAwais.
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Even though i did not know him, this makes me feel so sad. Tragical loss for his family and friends. I hope they find the strength to survive this terrible situation.
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