Mr. Bob Blancato is President of Matz, Blancato & Associates, Inc., a firm integrating public relations, government affairs and advocacy services. He assumed this position in 1996. Immediately prior, he served as the Executive Director of the 1995 White House Conference on Aging, appointed by President Clinton.

Mr. Blancato’s career involves more than 25 years in public service in both the Congress and the Executive Branch. This includes serving as Staff Director of the House Select Committee on Aging’s Subcommittee on Human Services from 1977 through 1988 and as Senior Advisor until 1993.

He currently serves as Chairman of the National Silver Haired Congress Advisory Council, as Special Advisor to the Board of Generations United, as Acting President of the National Committee to Prevent Elder Abuse, and serves on the Board of Directors for both the American Society on Aging and the United Seniors Health Cooperative. Additionally, Blancato was an original member of the Board of Directors of Citymeals-on-Wheels USA and served as President of the National Meals-on-Wheels Foundation.

Mr. Blancato was a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations World Assembly on Aging in 1982 in Vienna.

Mr. Blancato serves as President of Americans for Long Term Care Security (ALTCS), a broad based bi-partisan coalition promoting education and advocacy on the issue of long term care.

In December 2000, Mr. Blancato launched CaregiversCount.com, an online resource for up-to-date, non-partisan information on legislation and activities impacting caregivers and their families. Additionally, in 1998, Blancato founded the Boomer Agenda, the first bi-partisan political action committee for baby boomers.

The American Society on Aging (ASA) awarded Mr. Blancato with the ASA Award in February, 1999 for outstanding contributions to the field of aging. ASA is the nation’s largest association of professionals in the field of aging with 8,500 members.

He holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MPA from American University. He currently serves as Associate Professorial Lecturer in the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University and continues to teach in the Post Masters Certificate Program at Hunter College in New York.

Dr. Ann Bookman is Executive Director of the MIT Workplace Center. She is a social anthropologist who has authored a number of publications in the areas of women’s work, work and family issues, unionization, and child and family policy. Her new book, Starting in Our Own Backyards: How Working Families Can Build Community and Survive the New Economy (Routledge, 2004), extends the discourse on work-family integration to include issues of community involvement and civil society.

Dr. Bookman has held a variety of teaching, research, and administrative positions and has also worked in government, as a presidential appointee during the first term of the Clinton administration, as Policy and Research Director of the Women's Bureau at the U.S. Department of Labor, and as Executive Director of the bipartisan Commission on Family and Medical Leave. She is co-editor of Women and the Politics of Empowerment.

Dr. David Cooperrider’s interests include the theory and practice of Appreciative Inquiry(AI) as applied to corporate strategy, change leadership, and postive organizational scholarship. In addition, Dr. Cooperrider is pioneering new horizons in the AI Summit method--a large group and network-based approach-- for advancing business innovation and creative design. Dr. Cooperrider’s founding theory in Appreciative Inquiry is creating a positive revolution in the leadership of change, helping companies and communities around the world discover the power of strength-based approaches to planning, empowerment, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Dr. Cooperrider's work is especially vital because of its ability to enable strategic change in systems of very large and complex scale, for example with the US Navy, Hewlett-Packard, Parker Hannifin, McKinsey, the United Nations, Wal-Mart, United Way, and the American Society of Association Executives. His most exciting project was with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, President Jimmy Carter, and thousands of religious leaders of every faith, helping to build the United Religions Initiative which now has over 400 peace-building centers located on every continent.

Dr. Cooperrider's most recent passion is an inquiry into Business as an Agent of World Benefit where he believes that sustainable design has become the biggest business opportunity of the 21st century; where every social and global issue of our day can be viewed as a business opportunity to ignite industry leading eco-innovation, social entrepreneurship, and new sources of value.

Dr. Cooperrider has published 14 books, authored over 50 articles, and has received numerous awards. He and his wife Nancy live in Chagrin Falls and have three children: Daniel at University of Chicago; Matt at Case Western; and Hannah at Miami University of Ohio.

Mr. Dick Goldberg is the Director of the Coming of Age initiative, Greater Philadelphia’s initiative to promote 50+ civic engagement, lifelong learning and community leadership. Mr. Goldberg's background includes work as a marketer, writer, producer and community volunteer for many Philadelphia-area nonprofits.

Mr. Goldberg wrote the off-Broadway drama Family Business, which ran in New York for over a year and was the basis for my becoming a Guggenheim Fellow.

Mr. Goldberg authored episodes of the TV series Kate and Allie and MacGyver and wrote the feature film The Imagemaker and the Franklin Institute Omnimax film Philadelphia Anthem. He also has written book and restaurant reviews for The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

From 2000 to 2002, Mr. Goldberg served as President of the Board of the Eastern Pennsylvania chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. From 2002 to 2004, he was Board Chair of Planned Parenthood Southeast Pennsylvania Advocates. He currently serves on the Eastern Pennsylvania Regional Board of the Anti-Defamation League.

Mr. Joe Lambert is the Founding Director of the Center for Digital Storytelling. Joe founded CDS (formerly the San Francisco Digital Media Center) in 1994, with wife Nina Mullen and colleague Dana Atchley, as a community arts center for new media. Together they developed a unique computer training and arts program known as the Digital Storytelling Workshop. This process grew out of Mr. Lambert's long running collaboration on Dana's solo theatrical multimedia work, Next Exit.

Since 1994, when the first Digital Storytelling Workshop was presented at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, Mr. Lambert has been the lead in offering the process in 45 U.S. states and 20 countries, assisting in the completion of more than 10,000 video works. In addition to adapting Digital Storytelling for use in web sites, CD-ROMs, mural projects, and social issue campaigns, Joe has authored and produced curricula in many contexts, including the Digital Storytelling Cookbook, the principle manual for the workshop process, and the text entitled Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community.

Mr. Lambert has been active in the Bay Area arts community for the last twenty-one years as an arts activist, producer, administrator, teacher, writer, and director. He was the Executive Director of the People's Theater Coalition from 1984-86. In 1986, he co-founded Life On The Water, a successful non-profit production company that offered a broad array of programs serving San Francisco's diverse communities. Mr. Lambert has produced over 500 shows, ranging from theatrical runs, single performances, special events, citywide festivals, subscription series, and conferences. Prior to his career in the arts, Mr. Lambert was trained as a community organizer and assisted in numerous local, statewide, and national public policy campaigns on issues of social justice and economic equity and earned a B.A. in Theater and Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Ms. Kathryn Lawler is the Director of Aging Atlanta - Lifelong Communities in Atlanta, GA. Aging Atlanta is a partnership of 50 public, private and nonprofit organizations in the Atlanta region to create an age-friendly community in the region.

Ms. Nancy Margulies facilitates visioning sessions and presents ideas using her unique form of graphic representation called Mindscaping. She works with corporations and educational groups worldwide, leading strategic planning workshops. Ms. Margulies has worked with President Clinton and the Cabinet, the Dalai Lama and facilitated workshops in Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Switzerland, Turkey, South Africa and India.

She co-developed The World Café process and was also on the national design team for Let's Talk America. Ms. Margulies's book, Mapping Inner Space, Revised, is the most widely used guide to visual mapping in the world, and has been published in seven languages.

Mr. Alan Pardini is the Senior Advisor to the the Community Experience Partnership funded by Atlantic Philanthropies that seeks to engage older Americans in the work of community improvement and social change. Presenting a unique leadership opportunity for progressive community foundations, the Community Experience Partnership initiative will help these organizations lead the charge in deploying the resources of boomer experience for the good of their communities.

An accomplished researcher, planner and advisor, Mr. Pardini has over 20 years' experience in program evaluation, strategic planning, management assistance, and applied research. He has overseen assignments that include community needs assessments, community surveys, feasibility analyses, organizational development consultations, training and technical assistance.

Dr. Phil Stafford is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences at IU Bloomington, the Director, Center on Aging & Community, Indiana Institute on Disability & Community and the Director, Evergreen Institute on Elder Environments, Inc.

Dr. Stafford's social research focuses on housing and community membership.

As an anthropologist, Dr. Stafford is interested in collaborative, citizen-participation research and community-development strategies designed to sustain and create healthier environments for older adults

Dr. Stafford's primary areas of interest in aging research include: social support, attitudes about aging and diversity: race/ethnicity, cultural, gender.