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Martin Rickerd has been Her Majesty's Consul-General at Atlanta since October, 2005. Martin was educated as a child at British Army schools in Malaysia and Germany before attending private schools in the UK. He joined Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service in 1972, serving at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) London before being assigned to the UK Delegation to NATO (Brussels, Belgium) in 1975. He was transferred to Wellington, New Zealand in 1978. In 1980 he returned to London to serve as Deputy Chief of Staff to a Minister in the FCO before being posted in 1982 to Barbados, where his duties took him to much of the Eastern Caribbean. From 1986 to 1990 he was responsible for press and political work at the British Consulate General in Milan, Italy. In the early 1990s he was head of the FCO's International Energy section and subsequently head of section in South East Asia Department. He was Head of Chancery [political section] at the British High Commission in Singapore from 1995 to 1998, when he returned to the UK to take up a secondment to Standard Chartered Bank at its London headquarters. From 2000 to 2003 he was Deputy Head of Mission and Consul at the British Embassy in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (also working in Liberia, Burkina Faso and Niger). Returning to London, he was Head of the North America Team in the FCO, dealing with the USA and Canada, until July 2005. In this capacity he oversaw arrangements for President Bush's State Visit to the UK in 2003. He was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1985 and an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2004.

George Singleton has published short stories in a variety of magazines and journals including *The Atlantic Monthly*, Harper's *Playboy*, *Zoetrope*, *The Georgia Review*, *Shenandoah*, *Southern Review*, *Kenyon Review*, *Glimmer Train*, *North American Review*, *Fiction International*, *Epoch*,* Esquire.com*, *New England Review*,* Carolina Quarterly*, *Greensboro Review*, *Arkansas Review*, *American Literary Review*, and so on. His stories have been anthologized in eight issues of *New Stories from the South*, and also in *20 Over 40*, *Surreal South*, *Writers Harvest 2*, *They Write Among Us*, and *Behind the Short Story*. His non-fiction has appeared in *Bark and Oxford American*, and has been anthologized in *Best Food Writing 2005*, *Dog is My Co-Pilot*, and *Howl*. He has published four collections of stories: *These People Are Us*, *The Half-Mammals of Dixie*, *Why Dogs Chase Cars*, *Drowning in Gruel*; and two novels: *Novel* and *Work Shirts for Madmen*. George was born in Anaheim, California and lived there until he was seven. He grew up in Greenwood, South Carolina. He graduated from Furman University in 1980 with a degree in philosophy, and from UNC-Greensboro with an MFA in creative writing. Singleton has taught English and fiction writing at Francis Marion College, the Fine Arts Center of Greenville County, and the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. He has been a visiting professor at the University of South Carolina and UNC-Wilmington, and has given readings and taught classes at a number of universities and secondary schools.

James Peacock is a Kenan Professor of Anthropology and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received his BA in Psychology from Duke Univresity and his PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, with fieldwork done in Southeast Asia and the United States. His fieldwork includes studies of proletarian culture in Surabaja, Indonesia, of Muslim reformation in southeast Asia, symbols in social life and of Primitive Baptists. He is also the author of The Anthropological Lens (Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Michelle Moran was born in the San Fernando Valley, CA. She took an interest in writing from an early age, purchasing Writer's Market and submitting her stories and novellas to publishers from the time she was twelve. When she was accepted into Pomona College she took as many classes as possible in British Literature, particularly Milton, Chaucer, and the Bard. Not surprisingly, she majored in English while she was there. Following a summer in Israel where she worked as a volunteer archaeologist, she earned an MA from the Claremont Graduate University. Michelle has traveled around the world, from Zimbabwe to India, and her experiences at archaeological sites were what inspired her to write historical fiction. A public high school teacher for six years, Michelle Moran is currently a full-time writer living in California with her husband. She is the author of the bestselling historical fiction Nefertiti and its standalone sequel, The Heretic Queen. Her third novel, Cleopatra's Daughter, will debut September 15, 2009.

Jacqueline M. Welch is an organizational effectiveness professional with particular expertise in career development,succession planning, performance management, organization design and development, training and learning, personnel marketing and workplace initiatives such as diversity. Jacqui began her career as a merchant with The May Department Stores and has been a consultant with such organizations as Towers Perrin and Accenture where she consulted in a variety of industries including consumer products, transportation and travel services, manufacturing and government. Currently, Jacqui is Vice President, Employee and Organizational Effectiveness for Rock-Tenn Company, a packaging solutions company based in Norcross, Georgia.

Goldman, a leading entrepreneur, has grown the Spanx Company from a one-product wonder to a $270 million enterprise in retail sales in 2007. In addition to product expansion, she launched overseas sales and diversified distribution channels. The Company's bright red package has caught on with women of all persuasions who share a desire to shape things up. Prior to joining Spanx, Goldman spent 10 years with The Coca-Cola Company and previously created and managed events for more than 48 Macy's stores. While her business acumen is well documented, her dedication to the Jewish world is evidenced by her active volunteer status with a variety of causes in Atlanta and in the Jewish community. She was thrilled to represent the Jewish Committee before Israel's Minister of Defense and felt privileged to be selected to run the Olympic torch through the streets of Atlanta.

Robert Strassler (MBA '61), a self-described scholar without credentials, worked for seven years on his own dime to produce an unlikely 1996 bestseller: *The Landmark Thucydides*, a reader-friendly version of the Greek philosopher's famously dense and convoluted account of the Peloponnesian War. After a successful career in the oil-field equipment business, Strassler has a new passion: He wants to make the classics more accessible to modern Western readers because, he said, "We are the heirs of the Greeks and the beneficiaries of their thought".

Dan Abrams (born May 20, 1966) is an American television host, legal commentator, and businessman. He is the CEO of Abrams Research, a media-focused expert network, and the chief legal analyst for NBC News. He formerly served as general manager of MSNBC and as an anchor for that network. Abrams graduated from Riverdale Country School in 1984. He received his BA cum laude in political science from Duke University in 1988. While at Duke, he anchored newscasts on the student run channel Cable 13, and was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Columbia University Law School in 1992.