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Marcus Rediker was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1951, to Buford and Faye Rediker, the first of their two sons. He comes from a working class family, with roots in the mines and factories of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia; he grew up in Nashville and Richmond. Rediker attended Vanderbilt University, dropped out of school and worked in a factory for three years, and graduated with a B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1976. He later went to the University of Pennsylvania for graduate study, earning an M.A. and Ph.D. in history. Rediker taught at Georgetown University from 1982 to 1994, lived in Moscow for a year (1984-5), and is currently Professor and Chair in the Department of History at the University of Pittsburgh. He has, over the years, been active in a variety of social justice and peace movements, most recently in the worldwide campaign to abolish the death penalty. Rediker have written (or co-written) five books: *Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea* (1987), *Who Built America?* (1989), volume one; *The Many-Headed Hydra* (2000), *Villains of All Nations* (2004) and *The Slave Ship: A Human History* (2007). He has lectured throughout the United States and abroad, in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Moscow, Sydney, and Tokyo; as well as had his writings translated into French, German, Greek, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish; and to hold fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Andrew P. Mellon Foundation.

Jean Ann Kennedy, the eighth child and youngest daughter of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, was born on February 20, 1928 in Brookline, Massachusetts. She attended Sacred Heart schools in England and the United States, and graduated from Manhattanville College, where she majored in English. After her brother Joe was killed in 1944 in World War II, Jean was chosen in 1945 to christen the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a newly commissioned Navy destroyer named for her brother. Jean Kennedy Smith's first experience in national politics came in 1960, as she traveled around the country for her brother, Sen. John F. Kennedy, in his campaign for the presidency. She became a political figure in her own right three decades later, when President Clinton nominated her to be U.S. Ambassador to Ireland on March 17, 1993. After confirmation by the Senate, she assumed her duties that June, serving until 1998. Mrs. Smith had accompanied President Kennedy on his famous visit to Ireland in 1963, and the Irish Government and the Irish people enthusiastically welcomed her return as America's Ambassador. She took an active interest in encouraging a peaceful settlement in the long-standing conflict in Northern Ireland, and one of her principle achievements was in persuading the Clinton Administration to grant a visa to Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, to visit the United States in 1994. The visit is widely regarded as a key step in the success of the peace process in the years that followed. Since 1964, Jean Smith has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, which provides grants to promote awareness and advocacy in the field of mental retardation. She has also served on the boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 1974, Jean Smith founded Very Special Arts, an educational affiliate of the Kennedy Center that provides opportunities in the creative arts for persons with disabilities. Her book, Chronicles of Courage: Very Special Artists, written with George Plimpton, was published by Random House in April 1993. In addition to a number of honorary degrees, Ambassador Smith has received various awards, including the Jefferson Award for Outstanding Public Service from the American Institutes for Public Service and the Margaret Mead Humanitarian Award from the Council of Cerebral Palsy Auxiliaries.

Marsha Green is OMI's president and founder. Dr. Green holds a doctorate from Temple University in animal behavior and physiological psychology. She is a licensed psychologist and professor at Albright College in Reading Pennsylvania. Here she served as chair of the Psychology Department until 1993 and founded the Psychobiology and Environmental Psychobiology programs. Since 1986, Dr. Green has been conducting research on the impact of human behavior on humpback whales and spinner dolphins in Hawaii. She has gained international recognition for her ground breaking studies linking human compassion with scientific field research to benefit whales, dolphins and their environment.

Barney Frank is the United States House Representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district since 1981 and a member of the Democratic Party. In 1982 he won his first full term and has been re-elected ever since by wide margins. In 1987 he became the second openly gay member of the House of Representatives, and has become one of the most prominent openly gay politicians in the United States. In 2007 Frank became the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee when the Democratic Party won a majority in the House of Representatives. The committee oversees the housing and banking industries.

Norman Lear has enjoyed a long career in television and film, and as a political and social activist and philanthropist. Mr. Lear began his television writing career in 1950 when he and his partner, Ed Simmons, were signed to write for "The Ford Star Revue" starring Jack Haley. After only four shows, they were hired away by Jerry Lewis to write for the Martin and Lewis Colgate Comedy Hour, which they continued to write until 1953. Mr. Lear then began writing on his own for comedy shows including T*he Martha Raye Show, The George Gobel Show, and The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.*In 1958, Mr. Lear teamed with director Bud Yorkin to form Tandem Productions. Together they produced several feature film; with Mr. Lear taking on roles as executive producer, writer, and director. Concerned about the growing influence of radical religious evangelists, Mr. Lear decided to leave television in 1980 and formed People For the American Way, a non-profit organization designed to speak out for Bill of Rights guarantees and to monitor violations of constitutional freedoms. People For remains an influential and effective voice for freedom. In 1982, he produced a two-hour television special "I Love Liberty," with a cast of stars and an audience filling the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Mr. Lear's business career continued in 1984 when he and his business partners created T.A.T. Communications, later known as Embassy Communications, which was sold in 1985. Mr. Lear then created and is currently chairman of Act III Communications, a multimedia holding company with interests in the recording, motion picture, broadcasting, publishing, and licensing industries, including Concord Music Group and Village Roadshow Pictures Group. In addition to People for the American Way, Mr. Lear has founded other nonprofit organizations, including the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication (2000-present), a multidisciplinary research and public policy center dedicated to exploring the convergence of entertainment, commerce and society; the Business Enterprise Trust (1989-2000) to spotlight exemplary social innovations in American business; and with his wife, Lyn, co-founded the Environmental Media Association (1989-present), to mobilize the entertainment industry to become more environmentally responsible. In 1999, President Clinton bestowed the National Medal of Arts on Mr. Lear, noting that Norman Lear has held up a mirror to American society and changed the way we look at it. He has the distinction of being among the first seven television pioneers inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame (1984). In 2001, Lyn and Norman Lear created the Declaration of Independence Road Trip, a four-year educational initiative and national multimedia tour of one of the surviving original copies of the Declaration, which they own. As part of the project, Mr. Lear launched Declare Yourself, a nonpartisan youth voter initiative that registered well over 1.2 million new young voters in the 2004 and 2006 elections.

Adria Steinberg is the associate vice president of Jobs for the Future (JFF), a nonprofit organization that promotes innovative reform in education and workforce development. She has almost four decades of experience in the field of education as a teacher, administrator, researcher, and writer. Combining knowledge of practice, policy, and research, her articles and books have made her a key contributor to the national conversation about high school reform.

Since 1995, The Greater Boston Food Bank has operated under the leadership of Catherine D'Amato, a seasoned food banker and impassioned advocate for the hungry. D'Amato has a solid background in non-profit management as well as experience serving on the board of America's Second Harvest, the national network for domestic food distribution. During her tenure at The Food Bank, D'Amato has demonstrated a consistent commitment not only to increasing the amount of food made available to the hungry, but also to insuring that the food they receive is nutritious and of the highest quality. The Greater Boston Food Bank is a non-profit clearinghouse for donated food, which is distributed to a network of 750 food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, daycare centers for children at risk, and other charitable feeding agencies throughout nine counties in eastern Massachusetts. The Greater Boston Food Bank is one of New England's largest hunger relief organizations, annually distributing 18 million pounds of food, which is the equivalent of almost 14 million meals.

As a Senior Policy Advocate at MLRI, Pat works on a range of legislative, administrative, and policy matters that affect low-income families, elders and persons with disabilities. Prior to joining MLRI, Pat was a paralegal in Western Massachusetts Legal Services from 1977 to 1983 where she focused on disability, unemployment, and public benefits cases. Since 2002, under her leadership as chair of the Massachusetts Food Stamp Improvement Coalition, the Coalition has negotiated extensive policy changes to restore significant federal nutrition benefits to the Commonwealth. She has been a contributing author and edited numerous publications, including *the Food Stamp Advocacy Guide*, *EAEDC Advocacy Guide*, and *TAFDC and EA Advocacy Guide*; as well as the original *Down and Out Advocacy Guide* and the benefits section of *Legal Tactics*, 4th and 5th Editions.

Deborah Frank was born in Washington, DC, and graduated from Radcliffe College summa cum laude in 1970. She worked as a social work assistant and research assistant from 1970 to 1972. In 1976, she graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency at Childrens Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle, Washington. Strongly interested in child development, she served as a fellow at Childrens Hospital Medical Center in the Developmental Pediatrics Program and later as the staff physician on the Failure to Thrive Team. In 1981, in response to a growing number of Failure to Thrive (FTT) families, she founded the Failure to Thrive Program at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) in Boston. Franks' FTT Program, now called the Grow Clinic for Children, at Boston Medical Center, is a national model for treating FTT. The program is a comprehensive treatment plan that provides medical care, nutritional counseling and social outreach in an effort to empower parents to help their children grow. The program also operates a food pantry and clothing room for FTT patients and their families. Over 90 percent of the children who are seen in the clinic improve and ultimately graduate from the program.

**Thomas M. McGee** is the current major of Lynn, MA. He formerly served the Third Essex District, which includes the communities of Lynn, Lynnfield, Marblehead, Nahant, Saugus, and Swampscott. Before his election to the Senate in 2002, McGee served four terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he represented West Lynn and Nahant. Before running for public office, McGee was a lawyer.

Before taking on the leadership of Project Bread, Ms. Parker was Vice President of Programs at Crittenton Hastings House, Boston; Regional Director of Catholic Charities, Boston; and Senior Policy Advisor for Human Services to Boston Mayor Raymond L. Flynn. She holds two masters degrees from Boston University, one in social work and one in business administration and public management. In 2001, Ms. Parker was awarded the New England Womens Leadership Award for outstanding leadership in human services and, in 2003, the Hubie Jones Award for Urban Service, issued by Boston University's School of Social Work. In 2004, as a result of Ms. Parker's leadership, Project Bread was recognized by the Washington, D.C.-based Congressional Hunger Center for its work in effectively fighting hunger in Massachusetts. In 2007, Ellen Parker was granted the Heroes Among Us award by the Boston Celtics for her overwhelming impact on the lives of others. In 2008, she was selected by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau to receive the prestigious Shattuck City Champion Award for her significant contribution to the Boston community. And in 2009, she was selected by the Greater Boston Federal Executive Board to receive the Speaker Thomas P. ONeill, Jr. Award for Exemplary Public Service at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston.