The Mat-Su Valley is Alaska at its most expansive — the Iditarod’s official start, the braided rivers below the Talkeetna Mountains, the historic gold camps of Hatcher Pass, and a string of communities from Wasilla and Palmer out to Willow and Talkeetna. The official tourism site for the Mat-Su Convention & Visitors Bureau needed to capture that sense of scale while still helping travelers actually plan a trip.

I led the development team that built it, owning the project from architecture through launch.

Project Role: Lead Developer — Architecture, Theme Development & Interactive Mapping

Technologies Used: WordPress, custom theme, interactive SVG/JavaScript mapping, partner advertising integration

What I Did:

  1. Core Theme Development & Architecture. I built the WordPress theme from the ground up and defined the technical architecture behind it — the content model, templating, and the patterns the rest of the team built against. The goal was a foundation that was fast, maintainable, and flexible enough to grow with the bureau’s content.

  2. Custom Interactive Map. A standout feature of the site is the interactive map of the Mat-Su region. Each community — Talkeetna, Willow, Houston, Big Lake, Wasilla, Palmer, Sutton — is represented with a custom-illustrated marker, and selecting one opens a rich detail panel with imagery and a path deeper into that area’s content. I designed and built this experience to turn a sprawling geography into something travelers can explore intuitively.

  3. Partner Advertising Integration. The bureau’s members and tourism partners are central to the site’s value, so I integrated a system for partner ad spending — managing sponsored placements and featured listings so partners get real visibility while the experience stays clean and trustworthy for visitors. This connected the site directly to the bureau’s revenue and member relationships.

  4. Team Leadership. As lead, I coordinated the development team, set technical direction, made the architecture decisions, and made sure the build held together across everyone’s contributions through to a successful launch.

Outcome:

The result is an immersive, performant destination site that does justice to the Mat-Su’s enormous landscape, gives visitors a genuinely useful planning tool, and creates real value for the bureau’s tourism partners. Leading this project end to end — from architecture to the custom map to partner integrations — makes it one of the pieces of work I’m most proud of.

Custom interactive map of the Mat-Su region, with illustrated community markers for Talkeetna, Willow, Houston, Big Lake, Wasilla, Palmer, and Sutton, and a detail panel highlighting Willow with a photo of a moose

The historic Independence Mine buildings at Hatcher Pass, weathered wood structures set against green Alaskan mountainsides

The Mat-Su Alaska homepage, from the river-valley hero through region guides, events, itineraries, and featured partner adventures