Drupal Front-End Engineer/Projects

This is a Claris Media site.

This project involved a comprehensive rework and modernization of the long-standing Fernie Fix magazine website. With a rich history and a massive library containing thousands of content nodes, the site originally debuted on Drupal 6 and was previously upgraded to Drupal 7.

To bring the platform into the modern digital landscape, the site underwent a massive architecture overhaul:

• Drupal 10 & 11 Upgrades: The completely rebuilt Drupal 10 version was successfully launched on October 30, 2024, and has since been updated to Drupal 11 to leverage the latest CMS capabilities.
• Mobile-First Design: The frontend theme was fully overhauled from the ground up to drastically improve mobile friendliness and responsive usability.
• UX & SEO Optimization: Content design and site functionality were restructured using modern Drupal capabilities, resulting in a cleaner user experience and optimized search engine visibility.
• Scalable Architecture: Designed with longevity in mind, the new site features a robust framework built to seamlessly accommodate future growth.

MyKootenays.ca is a dynamic regional tourism platform designed to showcase and promote the authentic Kootenay Rocky Mountain towns in British Columbia, Canada. 

Designed by Claris Media for Tourism Fernie as a simple, single-page Drupal 7 site, the platform underwent a complete architectural reconstruction. It has since been expanded and upgraded into a robust, modern Drupal 11 ecosystem.

Key Technical & Functional Highlights 

• Modernized Tech Stack: Completely migrated from Drupal 7 and upgraded through to Drupal 11 to ensure maximum longevity, security, and content management flexibility.
• Custom Responsive Design: Features a brand-new, fully responsive custom theme built from scratch to optimize site loading speeds, mobile usability, and seamless scalability. 
• Interactive Regional Guide: Serves as a comprehensive digital hub for travelers, offering community spotlights, curated road trip routes, and travel planning resources to highlight the culture, history, and natural beauty of the Kootenays.

Executed a full-scale technical modernization and rebuild of ZenSeekers.com, a premier Western Canada travel platform owned by Seekers Media. Replaced legacy systems with a high-performance, SEO-optimized digital experience to maximize organic traffic and user engagement. 

Key SEO & Technical Achievements

• Site Modernization & Speed: Overhauled core architecture and front-end interface to improve Core Web Vitals and page-load speeds, boosting search rankings.
• Custom Mobile-First Theme: Built a lightweight, fully responsive custom theme from scratch, optimized for Google’s mobile-first indexing.
• Optimized Content Architecture: Developed custom display formats for travel guides and articles, increasing dwell time and crawlability for search engine bots.
• Ongoing Growth & Maintenance: Manage continuous technical updates, performance tuning, and security patches to sustain search visibility and 100% uptime.

This project involved a major modernization of the long-standing Teamsters Local 464 website, migrating it from a legacy Drupal 7 setup to Drupal 10, and ultimately upgrading it to Drupal 11.

The rebuild focused on stripping away technical debt to deliver a highly optimized platform:

• Streamlined UI/UX: Overhauled the front-end interface to make essential union resources and updates much easier for members to navigate.
• Modernized Backend: Simplified the functionality and administrative experience, ensuring long-term stability, security, and performance.

SnowSeekers.ca is an established digital media platform focused on skiing, snowboarding, and winter sports content in Western Canada. Developed for Seekers Media, this project involved taking over the ongoing engineering and development of a long-standing website that has been live in various iterations for roughly a decade.

Key Details & Contributions

• Mobile Refactoring: Architected and deployed a brand-new mobile theme to optimize the site's cross-device responsiveness and mobile user experience.
• Content Architecture: Developed and configured custom displays and layouts to present multimedia travel content, conditions, and snow sports stories more dynamically.

FestivalSeekers.com is a digital media platform dedicated to profiling festivals, events, and cultural experiences across Western Canada. Developed for Seekers Media, this project involved taking over the ongoing engineering and development of an established web presence that has been live in various iterations for approximately a decade.

Key Details & Contributions

Mobile Framework: Built and implemented a brand-new mobile theme to maximize responsiveness and optimize the content for on-the-go users.

Content & Display Engineering: Configured and deployed various custom displays to showcase event lineups, travel stories, and multimedia content dynamically.

Development Model: Structural updates, optimization, and feature development on this site are actively ongoing.

The masterdatascience.ubc.ca platform is an academic website developed to support and promote the University of British Columbia's (UBC) Master of Data Science programs.

Originally built in early 2016 for Saint Bernadine Mission Communications Inc, the platform has undergone several major architectural overhauls to scale alongside the program's requirements and modern web compliance standards.

Technical Milestones & Core Features

• Institutional Brand Alignment: Developed using the official UBC Drupal base theme, ensuring strict adherence to the university's Common Look and Feel (CLF) guidelines. 
• CMS Evolution & Modernization:
  • 2016: Launched initially as a Drupal 7 site.
  • 2021: Completely reworked and rebuilt on Drupal 9 to reflect programmatic changes to the data science tracks and upgrade the backend infrastructure.
  • 2023: Successfully upgraded to Drupal 10 to guarantee modern performance, security patches, and ongoing stability.
  • 2026: Drupal 10 -> Drupal 11 upgrade
• Accessibility Compliance: The platform recently underwent a comprehensive accessibility audit. Following the assessment, all identified compliance deficiencies were resolved, resulting in a fully accessible and inclusive user experience for all students and prospective applicants.

KootenayDirt.com is a simple, mobile-friendly website designed to showcase the premier mountain biking destinations across the Kootenay Rockies region of British Columbia. Originally built as a single-page site on Drupal 7, the platform has since been upgraded to a modern, responsive Drupal 11 architecture to ensure seamless performance and an optimal user experience across all devices. 

Key Details 

• Client: Claris Media (developed for Tourism Fernie)
• Platform/CMS: Drupal 11 (Migrated from Drupal 7)
• Core Purpose: To highlight and promote regional mountain biking trails, community culture, and local riding events in the Kootenay Rockies.

 Features & Impact

• Mobile-First Design: Optimized for riders on the go, allowing easy access to trail networks and local community information straight from smartphones.
• Regional Promotion: Serves as a digital gateway for tourism, helping mountain bikers plan trips, discover over 680+ trails, explore local bike parks, and immerse themselves in the "real mountain culture" of the region.

This project involved a massive infrastructure overhaul for hsabc.org, an enterprise-scale website with over 20 years of digital history and a massive library containing thousands of content nodes. Having evolved through multiple generations of the internet, the legacy platform required a complete modernization to clean up decades of technical debt. 

• Multi-Generational Migration: Successfully stabilized and migrated a sprawling legacy database originally built on Drupal 7, upgrading it through Drupal 9, and fully modernizing it onto Drupal 10. 
• Complete Core Rebuild: Rebuilt all site functionalities from the ground up using modern Drupal configuration management and architecture best practices, ensuring long-term stability and security. 
• Custom Frontend Theme: Engineered a brand-new, responsive custom theme to deliver a highly accessible, streamlined, and mobile-friendly user experience for handling complex organizational content.

A complete modernization and platform upgrade for British Columbia’s professional body of osteopathic practitioners.

Originally built on a legacy Drupal 7 architecture, this project involved a comprehensive ground-up rebuild to Drupal 10, followed by a seamless subsequent upgrade to Drupal 11 to ensure long-term stability, performance, and modern security standards.

Key Features & Contributions

• Substantial 'Members Only' Backend:
  Engineered a robust, secure member portal designed to handle the complex workflows, resources, and administrative needs of the association's practitioners.
• Collaborative Development: 
  Partnered closely with Vanessa Croome of Claris Media to perfectly balance advanced technical functionality with clean, professional, and accessible user experience design.
• Enterprise Upgrade Path:
  Successfully migrated legacy data structures and configurations across major Drupal generations, ensuring zero downtime and a future-proofed digital home for the organization.

Tech StackCMS: 

• Drupal 11 (Migrated from Drupal 7 --> Drupal 10)
• Core Focus: Custom backend architecture, role-based access control, and large-scale data migration.