Our Team
Our Vision
We envision a community where technology is never a barrier to doing good.
Our Mission
Create opportunities to connect local nonprofit organizations and technologists to cultivate organizational and individual growth.
Darin Webb {President}
Darin is a software engineer with Code.org, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by young women and students from other underrepresented groups. Since his first hack in 2016, Darin found joy in far more than developing software. The opportunities to work with skilled local people, teach and learn new technologies, and to discover the passions of the non-profit participants bring him back every year. Beyond dsmHack, Darin is the Assistant Technical Director for Valley High School in West Des Moines, a member of the Comedy Xperiment improv troupe, and a circus instructor and performer at Cirque Wonderland in West Des Moines.
Ethan Spoelstra {Vice President}
Ethan is a technologist with a wide ranging variety of interests and experience. He has worked in IT across the construction, financial, and agricultural industries. Starting out in a support role, he moved into systems administration and networking and then onward to infrastructure support and eventually into DevOps. His primary tools are Bash, Python, Vim, and a mechanical keyboard.
He has been playing with a bit of everything over the years and using it in various strange and terrible ways. He is passionate about security because he’s seen how bad things can get, especially for those without strong digital literacy and he doesn’t want anybody to have to deal with identity theft or worse.
He currently contracts through Lean Techniques for a large agricultural company in Des Moines.
Rachelle {Treasurer}
Rachelle Little has decades of experience in project management, leadership, product development, and delivery - skills that she combines with her deep desire for fulfillment and passion for uplifting women as Executive Director of Raise the Bar Initiative. Rachelle's skills and experience are helping RBI transition into a new era of growth and expansion by formalizing and streamlining existing RBI operations and leveraging new opportunities that will help RBI expand its mission of building strong women and communities.
Rebecca Wolford {Nonprofit Liaison}
Rebecca Wolford is a nonprofit advocate and co-founder of Creative Habitat, a local nonprofit coworking and childcare co-op program. She has served on several nonprofit boards and worked as a capital campaign manager with MOPS International. She is passionate about utilizing design thinking to develop new solutions to old problems. Her education and professional background in business, design, organizational psychology and nonprofit management allow her to see organizational issues with diverse perspective. She is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and loves supporting local nonprofits and their leadership teams.
Dellen Burk-Flores {Event Marketing & Recruitment}
Dellen spent many years of her childhood at a family friend’s computer store where she enjoyed tracking down spare parts and testing new technologies. As she got older, she began playing a silly little game called Neopets, where she was an active guild leader and fell in love with coding. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from Iowa State University with minors in History, Journalism and Mass Communication. When she’s not busy training AI and/or exploring the limitations of her MacBook, Dellen enjoys cooking, gardening, supporting local businesses, and rearranging furniture. In the future, she hopes to earn a Masters degree in Nonprofit Mass Communication.
Mohammed {Hacker Liaison}
Mohamed is a software full-stack developer and scrum master at Berkley Technology Services. He enjoys learning new technologies, taking on challenges, and creating his own small projects. Mohamed also enjoys working out, playing soccer, spike ball, and spending time with his loved ones. Mohamed has been involved as a participant of dsmHack since 2019 and became a board member in 2024. Mohamed grew up in Kenya then moved to central Iowa where he attended Roosevelt High School, Central Campus, and eventually earned an Associates degree in Applied Science (BIS) at Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC).
Armaan Gupta {At Large}
Armaan joined the board in 2024, and you can learn all about him when he writes a bio for the dsmHack website!
Mitchel Sellers – At Large
Mitchel is the CEO and Director of Development at IowaComputerGurus, a software development company based in Ankeny, Iowa. At IowaComputerGurus Mitchel is responsible for day-to-day operations as well as software architecture and security. When not busy developing custom solutions for customer problems, you will often find him sharing his love of flight with others. Mitchel also gives back to the community through a number of other organizations by serving as a board member for the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association (COPA), Treasurer of the DNN Association Organization, and volunteering time and talent to others. Mitchel is a Des Moines native and received his Bachelor’s degree from Grand View University.
Valerie Downs – At Large
Valerie is currently a Product Designer at Granular, the digital business platform for Corteva Agriscience. She leads customer discovery, user research and design for a portfolio of new solutions to help farmers run more profitable and sustainable businesses.
Outside of work, Valerie enjoys antiquing and comic book hunting with her husband, tending to her backyard goldfish pond, and taking her senior dog on leisurely walks. Valerie is an Iowa native and has her Bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University.
Sean Newcomb – At Large
Sean Newcomb is currently a Site Reliability Engineer at Lean Techniques where he works with a large agriculture company to ensure mission critical platform services are available, scalable, reliable, and secure. Before Sean got interested in site reliability and agriculture he focused on building out world scale datacenters for Facebook (META) and Google (Alphabet) that hosted everything from Instagram, Messenger to Youtube and Waymo. Sean has participated in dsmHack since 2019 and loves to engage with local non-profits and leaders to enable them to be successful. Sean wanted to extend his capacity by joining the board in 2022 to have a more direct impact on the organization. In Sean's free time he enjoys working out at the gym, listening to podcasts about geo-political issues, the state of technology and ai, and of course aliens! Sean has grown up in central Iowa attending North High, Central Campus, and Des Moines Area Community College.
Kyle Lieber – Retired
Previous Role: Vice President (2019 - 2022)
Kyle is a Technical Lead at HubSpot, a global software company that provides a CRM platform with marketing, sales, customer service, content management, and operations capabilities. Outside of work, Kyle enjoys contributing to open source projects, playing guitar, boating, and spending time with his wife and kids. Kyle has been involved as a participant of dsmHack since 2015 and became a board member in 2018. Kyle received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Northern Iowa.
Lynn Woody – Retired
Previous Role: President (2019 - 2022)
Lynn is a Delivery Manager at Trility Consulting. Having started her career as a developer, she understands the needs of the developer and seeks to bridge the gap between business and IT teams. Having experienced the power that agile principles make within teams and culture, she’s the happiest when others get to realize that power. She has participated in the dsmHack for many years, including providing an agile workshop for non-profits. Lynn enjoys traveling with her husband and being active in her church.
Antoinette Stevens – Retired
Previous Role: President (2022-2023)
Antoinette Stevens works remote from home full time as a Senior Security Detection and Response Engineer for Cisco Meraki, a San Francisco based Cisco Systems company specializing in the production of cloud-managed IT and networking devices. Antoinette is originally from Stone Mountain, GA and moved to Des Moines in 2015 after receiving her Bachelors in Computer Science from the University of Georgia. Since arriving in Des Moines, Antoinette has been an active member of the tech community by working with organizations such as Girls Who Code and the Technology Association of Iowa. In 2018, Antoinette was named as a Business Record’s Forty Under 40 honoree for her continued dedication to tech community in Iowa.
In Memoriam – Chuck Rolek (1988-2019)
Chuck was a fixture at dsmHack from day one. For the first three years of dsmHack, he not only helped the teams he joined as a volunteer but was the first to step up and help any other participant or team that needed it. He was our go-to guy and everyone knew he’d bend over backward to make sure that all of our nonprofits left happy. He then joined as a board member in 2017 so that he could “help as many people as humanly or superhumanly possible.” He wanted to focus his energies and direct his efforts to make each dsmHack event that much better. And he did. The impact that Chuck was able to have on not only our organization but on the community as a whole were immeasurable and he is greatly missed.
