As Drupal project founder Dries Buytaert has mentioned on his blog recently, Drupal is growing and the demand for high-quality training is growing. Lullabot has been teaching people to use Drupal for over 4 years now and we often feel like proud parents watching so many of our students get great Drupal jobs, go on to create amazing Drupal sites, and become involved and influential in the Drupal community.

A few months ago we posted a request for trainers. Response was overwhelming. We were amazed by the quantity of high-quality applications we received. After a long time sifting through the applications we chose a group of trainers with deep Drupal knowledge, experience in the Drupal community, and the ability to simplify and communicate Drupal configuration and programming methodology.

Lullabot's current training & consulting team includes Addi Berry, Angela Byron, Jeff Eaton, Nate Haug, Karen Stevenson, Matt Westgate, and me. With the addition of our new trainers, we'll be able to offer more frequent and higher quality public and private Drupal training.

We've assembled a group of teachers who are not only clear communicators with deep and pragmatic hands-on Drupal knowledge and experience, but they're also passionate about Drupal and the Drupal community. Here's the list of new Lullabot trainers:

Jerad Bitner
We first met Jerad when he came to a Lullabot workshop back in 2007. Shortly thereafter he joined up with Sony Music where he led development on Sony's artist multi-site Drupal installation which currently runs sites for over 100 Sony artists. He then moved to Lifetime Television before eventually founding Rapid Waters Development. Jerad has written several popular modules for Drupal including Activity and Flag Friend. He is known as sirkitree on Drupal.org.

Randy Fay
Randy has been developing websites since 1994. He dabbled with Drupal during the 4.6 days. But he began as a Drupal core developer shortly after a 3-year bicycle trip in which he rode all the way from the frozen North of Canada to Argentina and listened to every single Lullabot podcast. (We're still not sure which is more of an accomplishment!) Randy has contributed quite a number of patches to Drupal 6 and 7, is a co-maintainer of the Drupal AJAX subsystem, and developed and maintains a number of contrib modules including the Examples module, a great learning tool for new developers. Randy is known as rfay on Drupal.org.

James Sansbury
James has been lead Drupal developer at Sprocket in Atlanta, GA since 2007. Sprocket, a design-focused, web-development shop has been building sites for the past 6 years, but James helped them to standardize their development with Drupal and they've been building some beautiful Drupal sites. James has contributed to Drupal core development and also released several contrib modules including Follow, Profiler, and Region Manager. He is known as q0rban on Drupal.org.

Joe Shindelar
Joe is an artist, graphic designer, and web developer who has been building Drupal sites and participating in Drupal core development since 2006. He also enjoys snowboarding and is a certified level II and freestyle accredited instructor who teaches for Blizzard MN when the weather permits. Joe is known as eojthebrave on Drupal.org.

Jen Simmons
Jen is a graphic designer and front-end developer who has been creating websites and teaching web development since the mid-nineties. She became heavily involved in the WordPress community pushing the limits of WP and learning to bend it to her will. In 2007, Jen moved her focus to Drupal and quickly became very involved in the Drupal community. Jen has a passion for Drupal and loves to teach. She's taught in the university classroom, at professional conferences, and in community workshops. Jen's theme, Bartik, is slated for inclusion in Drupal 7. On Drupal.org she's known as jensimmons.

We'll be announcing new public Lullabot workshops soon. We can also create a custom curriculum and bring our trainers right to you. Find out more at our on-site Drupal training page.