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Mr. Hakes started his career in teaching and research before entering government service. He was an assistant professor and subsequently an associate professor of Political Science at the University of New Orleans from 1970 through 1977. Mr. Hakes has published widely on a variety of subjects, including articles on the judicial recruitment process during the Carter Administration and the impact of Democratic Party reform on the South. Since entering government in 1977, Mr. Hakes has held federal positions at the Agency for International Development, the Department of Interior, and the Executive Office of the President. He also worked for Florida Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham, including stints as state energy director and the governor's chief of staff . Mr. Hakes graduated from Wheaton College. He earned an MA and a PhD from Duke University in Political Science.

Rebekah Hren is an author from Raleigh, North Carolina. She co-authored The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit with her husband, Stephen.

Charles H. Battle has served as a key figure in the Olympic Movement for the past 20 years. . He served as Executive Vice President of the Atlanta Organizing Committee and took a leave of absence from law to travel around the world lobbying members of the International Olympic Committee and attending various Olympic meetings to promote Atlanta's candidacy. He joined The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) and served as its Managing Director for International Relations. Mr. Battle was awarded the Olympic Order by the International Olympic Committee for his outstanding contributions to the Olympic Movement. He presently serves as Senior International Advisor for the Chicago 2016 Bid Committee. In 1997 Mr. Battle became President of Central Atlanta Progress and in 1999, became Executive Director of both the WestPoint Stevens Foundation, a corporate foundation and the Holcombe and Nancy Green Foundation, a private foundation. Mr. Battle received his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1964 and his J.D. with highest honors from Emory University School of Law in 1970. He remains active with both schools through many roles and was honored with Emory Law Schools Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006.

Stephen Hren is the co-author, with his wife Rebekah, of the The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit.

Dr. Janice Simon, Josiah Meigs' Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor of Art History, focuses on the art of the United States from colonial times through World War II. She was granted the Ph.D. from the University of Michigan with Great Distinction, her M.A. from the same institution, and her B.A. from SUNY/Buffalo summa cum laude, all in Art History. Her dissertation on the most important art periodical of pre-Civil War America, *The Crayon (1855-1861): The Voice of Nature in Criticism, Poetry, and the Fine Arts*, is widely cited. A faculty member of the Lamar Dodd School of Art since 1988, she has taught a wide variety of subjects related to American art on both the undergraduate and graduate levels including American landscape painting, *the Art of Alfred Hitchcock*, *the Blue Four in America*, and *Spirituality in Modern Art*. She has been honored with numerous teaching awards including the University's highest honors for junior faculty, the Richard Russell Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching (1992), and the University's most prestigious distinction, the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship (2006). Her publications include *Images of Contentment: John F. Kensett and the Connecticut Shore*, co-editor of *Crossroads in American Impressionism at the Turn of the Century*, and author of chapters in *Classical Ground: Mid-Nineteenth Century American Painters and the Italian Encounter* and *Seeing High and Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture*, among others. She is currently working on a book on the image of the forest interior in American art.

Dr. Daniel S. Papp became the third president of Kennesaw State University July 1, 2006. Prior to being named president by the Board of Regents, Papp served as senior vice chancellor for academics and fiscal affairs of the University System of Georgia. Senior vice chancellor since 2000, Papp was responsible for system-wide academic, faculty and student issues and concerns; business and financial affairs; academic and business information-technology systems; and strategic planning affecting all of the university systems 35 institutions. Before becoming senior vice chancellor, Papp directed educational programs for Yamacraw, Georgia's initiative to become the global leader in broadband technologies and components. Papp served as interim president of Southern Polytechnic State University from 1997 to 1998 and as executive assistant to the president at Georgia Tech from 1994 to 1997. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Dartmouth College, Papp received his doctorate in international affairs from the University of Miami. His academic specialties include international security policy, U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policies, and international system change. He is the author or editor of 10 books on these topics, including the biography of former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk. He also has published more than 60 journal articles and chapters in edited books.

David Poythress is a Georgia politician. He has served terms as Secretary of State and Commissioner of Labor of the state of Georgia. Poythress also served as the Adjutant General of the Georgia National Guard from 1999 until 2007, initially appointed by Governor Roy Barnes and subsequently reappointed by Governor Sonny Perdue. He retired as a Lieutenant General. In 1998, Poythress made an unsuccessful bid for Governor of Georgia.

Joel Cowan holds Georgia Tech's William B. Turner Chair in Servant Leadership and is an adjunct professor for the College of Management and the Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship. Owner of the investment company Habersham & Cowan, Inc., he founded Georgia's Peachtree City, serving as the town's first mayor from 1959 to 1963. He served as CEO of Peachtree City's development company through 1976. Cowan also has developed such projects as Phipps Plaza, Snapfinger Woods, and Palmetto Dunes. A member of the Society of International Business Fellows and the Carter Center's Board of Councilors, Cowan has shifted his focus in recent years from real-estate development to international activities. He does trade, technology transfer and merchant banking in the Netherlands and the emerging economies of Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia and China. His nonprofit contributions in these same regions include education and leadership training. Cowan is currently a director of World Airways Holdings, Inc. He also directs the EastWest Institute in New York and the Center for International Leadership in Washington, DC. He has held leadership positions with the Atlanta and Georgia Chambers of Commerce, and was the founding chairman of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District.

Jennet Conant is the author of *The 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer*, * The Secret City of Los Alamos* and *Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II*. A former journalist, she has written for *Vanity Fair*, *Esquire*, *GQ*, *Newsweek*, and *The New York Times*. She lives in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York.

Lieutenant Colonel, Lee A. Archer (September 1919) was a Tuskegee Airman in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He is an Honoree of the American Fighter Aces Association. Archer was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with 18 Clusters, the Distinguished Unit Citation and many other service medals.

Hiram Mann is one of fewer than 500 black pilots who flew combat missions in World War II as a Tuskegee Airman. He was originally rejected from the army for two reasons: he was married (pilots at the time were required to be single) and he only had 1 year of college (flight trainees needed a minimum of 2 years). By 1942, however, the military needed pilots more than it needed to uphold strict academic and marital standards. The Army granted Mann's request. Mann graduated from the TAAF flight program as a single-engine combat fighter pilot in June 1944. He went on to fly several aircrafts, including the P-51 Mustang, P-40 Warhawk and P-47 Thunderbolt fighter planes and a C-45 Expediter cargo plane. He retired from the U.S. Air Force as a lieutenant colonel with more than 21 years of service. He also eventually earned bachelor's and master's degrees.