Dana Braun is an attorney and is a partner in the Savannah law firm of Callaway, Braun, Riddle & Hughes, P.C. where he has practiced law since 1980. His practice covers a wide range of areas in both litigation and non-litigation matters. Prior to private practice he served as law clerk for the Honorable B. Avant Edenfield, Judge, United States District Court for the Southern district of Georgia.
In addition to being involved and serving on boards of numerous community, charitable and civic organizations, Dana served as Alderman At Large for the City of Savannah for close to six years. As Alderman he led the effort to create the Savannah Film Commission, which has been successful in the recruitment of film and other media projects to Savannah. Dana served on the Georgia Film, Video and Music Advisory Commission from 2004 through 2008 and was chairman of its Legislative Committee which drafted the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act which was signed into law in May, 2008. This Act provides a state tax credit for production expenditures up to 30 percent and is available to both traditional motion picture projects such as feature films, television series, commercials and music videos and to innovative new industries such as game development and animation. The Act has resulted in major film and television productions in Georgia and the startup of gaming entities.
Dana is married to Meg Doolan Braun and they have two sons.
Radford Harrell is a serial entrepreneur, geek / marketer and generalist. His diverse background includes the US Navy, Commercial Diver, Caribbean Dive Boat Captain, medical device designer and biologic implant marketer. His latest venture, TalentSoup, provides the “Faces of Advertising” through an online marketplace, where models, actors and real people (with no experience), are booked by Fortune 500 companies for use in their ads. The company was a finalist in the TAG/GRA Business Launch Competition in 2009. This venture is the first of several technologies being developed that will dramatically speed the creation of advertising imagery. Rad relocated to Savannah from Atlanta in November, 2009, after an introduction to the city by the old CC, with his wife, then 2 year old son Gressett, and 2 dogs.
Kevin Lawver is a nerd, geek and troublemaker. He spent 13 years at AOL building big web products, working on web standards and trying to get the company to embrace the web. He has a patent, helped write a book on standards-based development and won several awards for building products that no longer exist. He moved to Savannah with his wife and two sons in 2008 and is currently the CEO at Music Intelligence Solutions where they’re trying to bring science to the music industry. Kevin runs Refresh Savannah, helped start Geekend, TEDx Creative Coast and Free Advice Friday. He’s always looking for ways to cause “productive trouble” and get people to do cool new things with technology.
He holds degrees in design and environmental design from Venezuela, United States and Canada. He possesses 12 years of teaching and 20 years of professional experience. He has been featured in Business Report’s “40 under 40” and ID magazine’s “40 Best Designers Under 30.” He is the Dean of the School of Design at SCAD. He has supervised the creation of multiple educational programs, including a graduate program in Design for Sustainability, Design Management program and an Accessory Design program.
J. David Frost is a Professor of Civil Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds administrative appointments as a Vice Provost of Georgia Tech and the Founding Director of the Savannah Campus. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.A.I. in Civil Engineering (Honors) from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland as well as M.S. and PhD degrees in Civil Engineering from Purdue University. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Indiana and Canada. He has worked in industry in Europe and North America on a variety of natural resource related projects including building artificial sand islands for oil exploration in the Arctic. His research focuses on the development of integrated digital data collection technologies for solving subsurface and infrastructure problems. He has been awarded two patents for a multi-sensor subsurface penetrometer system. Frost is co-owner and Chief Research Officer of an Atlanta based software company that develops data collection and management software tools for civil engineering applications.
Since moving to Savannah, Frost has been involved in various local organizations including the Coastal Business, Education & Technology Association, the Creative Coast Advisory Council, the Savannah Economic Development Authority Advisory Council, the Rotary Club of Savannah and the 200 Club of the Low Country. He also served on the Mayor’s Task Force that led to the establishment of the Greater Savannah International Alliance. He is also a member and Chairman of the Board of SAGIS, the Savannah Area Geographic Information System.
Susan Isaacs is an entrepreneur, design-nerd and managing partner of award-winning Paragon Design Group, a broadcast, print and web design firm she co-founded in 2001 with fellow graduates of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Having earned her M.Arch from the college, Susan adapted her critical thinking skills to focus on business innovation through upside-down thinking and designing for the greater good.
Under her leadership Paragon has cultivated a reputation for creative problem-solving and earned more than 45 local, regional and national awards in the last 3 years alone. Clients include CNN International, The Weather Channel, Gulfstream Aerospace,The Hatchery LLC, SCAD, Paula Deen Enterprises and a number of non-profits including All Walks of Life, Inc (AWOL) and Clear Air Visibility Unlimited (CAVU).
Murray Wilson has consulted in the professional broadcast television industry for over 20 years. He was heavily involved in the industry’s transition from analog to digital and played an integral role in the development and deployment of some of the largest multi-channel digital broadcast facilities in the world, working in North America, Europe and Asia. He is President of tps Consulting (http://tpscorp.com) an experienced broadcast television consultancy that delivers operational analysis and workflow design to the professional broadcast industry. He has consulted at an engineering level in all aspects of television network technologies, including content production, content management, distribution and transmission. He established an excellent reputation in the start-up of the world’s largest broadcasting facilities, based on his extensive knowledge of workflow design, operational procedural development, and resource optimization. His clients include SONY, Galaxy Latin America, DIRECTV, DIRECTV Japan, MTV, MediaFLO, Viacom, and Hughes SPACEWAY.
Sean Brandon is the Management Services Bureau Chief for the City of Savannah. He is responsible for oversight of the departments of Mobility and Parking Services, Research & Budget, Revenue, Purchasing, Human Resources, Vehicle Maintenance, Archives and Recorder’s Court.
Mr. Brandon has worked for the City of Savannah for more than a decade. He started as a Management Intern in 2001, was hired as Management Services Coordinator, and then promoted to Assistant to the City Manager in 2006. Since 2008 he has served as Mobility and Parking Services Director, where he oversaw a staff of roughly 100 employees who direct on-street parking management and enforcement, garage operations, recreational docks and the citywide bike plan.
He earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Hampton University, and his Master of Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jennifer Abshire, the founder and CEO of Abshire Public Relations, recently celebrated the firm’s 12-year anniversary. In just over a decade, Abshire PR stands firmly as the region’s premier, go-to public relations and marketing resource, delivering results for clients throughout coastal Georgia and the South Carolina Lowcountry. In 2009, Abshire PR was nationally recognized for its leadership and innovative public relations services and was awarded the PR News Legal PR Award.
Blake Ellis often gets tagged as a “serial entrepreneur”, having been involved in a number of web-based start-ups. Most of his efforts fail spectacularly, but the ones that survive seem to do very well. In addition to CommerceV3, the successes include Rails Machine, Smack Dab Studios, ResEngine, and Timberline Interactive.
Blake has won numerous technology awards for CommerceV3 and Rails Machine, including the CBETA Innovation Award and graduation from the Advanced Technology Development Center at Georgia Tech.
Zelda Tenenbaum is a noted process change manager, facilitator, seminar leader and trainer who has 30 years experience working with business and industry, government and civic organizations around the US and in Asia.
She has authored several training manuals including” Facilitation Training”, “Coaching for Improved Performance”, “Successfully Applying the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator in the Educational Setting”. She is author of a chapter, “Developing Strong Leadership” in the workbook, Leading by Stepping Back: A Guide for City Officials on Building Neighborhood Capacity. She contributed a chapter in the book, The Green Building Bottom Line, by Martin Melaver and Phyllis Mueller.
Her areas of expertise include Productive Communications, Team Building, Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Managing Transition, Applied Strategic Thinking and Understanding Differences in the Workplace.
Zelda is President of Tenenbaum Consulting,Inc., a training and consulting firm based in Savannah, Georgia. Her mission is to make a difference by facilitating personal and organizational growth.
Cathy is the current Region Vice President of the Coastal Region for Georgia Power. She holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, a Master of Business Administration from Georgia State University, and attended the Harvard Business School Executive Management Program.
She is currently on the board of Armstrong Atlantic State University, Coastal Empire United Way, Georgia Tech Savannah, Guiding Coalition, Savannah Economic Development Authority, Savannah Technical College, Step-Up Savannah, and SunTrust. Previously she has been a part of Leadership programs in Camden County, Dublin, Morgan County and Atlanta.
Cathy was born in Dublin, Georgia. She is married to Mitchell Hill, and has two children, Mitchell Jr. and Candace.
Christian Sottile is principal of a Savannah-based urban design firm working extensively in Nationally Registered Historic Districts. Currently, His work also includes regional planning and master planning for new towns, emphasizing historic research, urban analysis and community-wide engagement.
Christian Sottile began his design career unconventionally by entering the architectural profession as an apprentice before receiving formal education. He later graduated as Valedictorian from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and received a fellowship to continue urban research in Italy. Mr. Sottile earned his Masters Degree in Urban Design and Architecture from Syracuse University and was voted among the Top 100 Academics in the Nation by USA Today.
After his graduate work, Sottile turned his attention toward expanding the role of the architect in issues of community planning, preservation and growth. Currently, along with his practice, Sottile holds a faculty position as Professor of Urban Design and Architecture in the Masters program at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Mr. Sottile has received over twenty-five awards for his work, including an international Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism, awards from the American Planning Association, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, and a National Honor Award for Urban Design from the American Institute of Architects.
Syl is the son of Savannah’s first African-American school superintendent, and an active member of Congregation B’Nai Brith Jacob. His Jewish faith helps him see the philosophical, and often humorous, side of his intense schedule. “Gam zo l’tovah” (meaning “This, too, is for good”) is one of his favorite responses to challenge. And he seems to love challenge. Besides being a nationally known CEO, Formey is the enthusiastic chairman and public face of Savannah’s Harbor Pilotage Commission, skilled boat captains who guide huge ships into and out of the port. He’s also an active part of the Savannah Airport Commission. In his free time, he captains his own yacht.
