Fred Keller is the founder of Cascade Engineering. During this lecture, he discusses the background of Cascade Engineering and also shares thoughts on sustainability from business and environmental perspectives.
Keller received a bachelor's degree in materials science and engineering from Cornell University and a master's degree in business management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Barry Gilbertson is a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers where he leads the real estate and hospitality & leisure teams within the Advisory practice.
After qualifying as a chartered quantity surveyor in 1974, Gilbertson became a partner in private practice in 1983. He later headed the professional services department at an estate agency before becoming managing director of a property investment and development company. Gilbertson then joined Coopers & Lybrand in 1992 as national property adviser, which merged with Price Waterhouse in July 1998 to form PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In 2004, Gilbertson was elected to serve as President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) which has over 110,000 members worldwide.
Jean Hill is Executive Director of Infrastructure for the Retail Division at Morgan Stanley.
Prior to her role at Morgan Stanley, Hill headed up infrastructure services for Merrill Lynch's Institutional business and served as a consultant at Credit Suisse First Boston. Prior to those roles, she founded and later sold a startup company which sold Kosher meat by mail-order.
Jean Hill received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her law degree from Fordham University.
Rhett is Chairman and CEO of DEALTEK, Ltd. He specializes in development, expansion, and location strategies for headquarters, manufacturing, and other operating facilities. Rhett has negotiated, advocated, and closed deals for many Global 500, Fortune 500, and other companies.
Before founding DEALTEK, Rhett directed a corporate expansion and relocation consulting practice at a Big 4 firm. He previously also served as a bank's Chief Operations Officer and practiced law at a major international law firm. Rhett holds law licenses in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and New York. He has focused his consulting and law practices on business, finance, and real estate deals; technology licensing; entrepreneurial ventures; and economic development.
Rhett received a B.S. in Management (finance major) with honors from Tulane University, a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the College of William and Mary, and an Executive Certificate in International Business from Georgetown University. He also completed the Economic Development Course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Nathaniel Stern is an internationally exhibited installation artist, net.artist and performance poet. His interactive installations have won awards in New York, South Africa and Australia, and his net.art has been featured in festivals all over Europe, Asia and the US.
Nathaniel's collaborative physical theatre and multimedia performance work has won three FNB Vita Awards - including Best Presentation of a New Contemporary Work - and has been featured on the main stage at theGrahamstown Festival in South Africa. His poetry repertoire includes the US National Poetry Slam competition and the HIV/AIDS Arts, Media & Film Festival (South Africa).
He currently lives and works both in and from Johannesburg, as an adjunct faculty member of MCAD, external MA lecturer and supervisor at the Wits School of Arts (University of the Witwatersrand) and freelance lecturer at Newtown's Anti-Retroviral Theatre program and The South African School Of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance.
Nathaniel received his undergraduate degree in Textiles and Apparel Design from Cornell University, and his Masters Degree in Interactive Telecommunications from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.
In 1978, Ed Harbes began working with his father in a multi-generational potato and cabbage farming business on Long Island (Mattituck, New York). The 1980's were a transitioning period for farming. An increasingly global economy made it difficult for smaller "Mom and Pop" type operations to thrive. After several disappointing years in the potato business the Harbes Family Farm shifted focus to retail farming.
In 1989, they planted a new type of Super Sweet Corn, built a 14' by 14' gazebo and started retailing directly to the public. The farm now has two locations, and all eight of the Harbes children have taken an active part in farm operations, from plowing and harvesting the fields to running the farm stands.
Tom and Denise Warren are the founders and owners of Stone and Thistle Farm. Stone and Thistle Farm is a family farm in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in central New York state. The farm produces meadow raised lamb, goat, chickens, turkeys, eggs, pork, beef and goat milk. The farm prides itself on offering products with no additives, hormones, antibiotics or drugs.
Edward "Skip" Jackson, along with his wife, are co-owners of Iron Kettle Farm. Iron Kettle Farm began as a small roadside farm selling strawberries, corn, summer vegetables, tomatoes, and some fall produce from an abandoned corncrib. The farm has continued to expand over the years and now draws visitors from all over the Northeast. The farm is such a tourist attraction that it won the Governor's Agricultural Award at the New York State Fair in 1992 and the first-ever Agriculture-Tourism Award in 1998.
During the public season (May 1 to October 31), thousands of visitors come to admire the gardens, buy plants and produce, browse in the gift store, indulge in homemade "country" foods (cider, homemade doughnuts, pies, and cookies), and visit the baby animals: goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, miniature horses, donkeys and pigs.
Scott Stewart is co-founder of Stewart-Peterson Advisory Group. The firm provides agricultural marketing services for farmers and ranchers throughout the country. It was started in 1986 by Scott and his partner Roy Peterson and has grown to be one of the largest agricultural advisory firms in the country. It publishes a wide variety of reports on the agriculture and financial markets.
Scott is president of the National Introducing Brokers Association, a member of the National Futures Association, Board of Directors Nominating Committee, and a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Ag Advisory Committee.
Scott Stewart earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University.