Adams is a leading tourism marketer, who as Director of Intergovernmental Relations and External Affairs for the United States Department of the Interior, led efforts to create a tourism policy strategy for President Barack Obama, leading to the passage of the Tourism Policy Act and establishment of Brand USA, the marketing organization for the United States.  Adams has also had a sterling career in broadcasting, communications, and emergency management, working 16 years in broadcast journalism, vice president of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, and government affairs director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  She received the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. Coast Guard for her work on the Macondo Oil Spill in the U. S. Gulf of Mexico.

This writer/journalist is a graduate of Princeton University and the Yale School of Drama (where he received the ASCAP Cole Porter Prize). An editor for publications ranging from ASME- and Webby-winning LiFE.com to Maxim magazine, his articles include a CNN investigation of Finland’s success in the World Happiness Report and a history of Times Square with The Wire creator David Simon. He served as Director of Communications for Plan A Technologies (a software company with staffers on six continents) and helped organize the Guinness world record 12-day live tweet for all 552 Simpsons episodes featured in FXX’s Every.Simpsons.Ever marathon. Also a playwright, he wrote the book for a Drama Desk-nominated musical and has collaborated with Tony-winner Alex Timbers (Best Direction for Broadway’s Moulin Rouge!). He is one of the authors featured in Humor: A Reader for Writers, along with Zadie Smith and David Foster Wallace.

Richer is a noted tourism marketing professional who has led destination efforts for New Jersey, Nevada, Atlantic City, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, resulting in numerous awards, including an Advertising 100 Award from Advertising Age Magazine, recognition from Black Meetings and Tourism Magazine, the Skalleague of the Year from Skal International, and other such citations in New Jersey, Nevada, Mississippi, nationally, and internationally. He has traveled the world and made speeches at conferences in such diverse countries as Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Croatia, Ethiopia, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Tanzania.

Vera originally comes from Africa, having been born in Zambia and is currently a citizen of Zimbabwe, working in corporate America and government.  Vera has been a case management systems professional and currently serves the Attorney General of Washington, DC, in a leadership capacity.  As a work permit authorized African based in the United States capitol, she has both access and familiarity with the international diplomatic corps based there with a particular focus on the embassies representing countries in Africa.

Wilson is the Director of International Marketing for the tourism promotion agency of New York State. He manages offices in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and China. Previously, as President of the Wilson Company, Wilson specialized in empowering communities to assess, plan, and market their tourism resources. Clients included the Lakota Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, Harlem in New York City, Belize, Clinton and Warren Counties in New York, and a fourteen-city region in Massachusetts. Formerly he was Director of Marketing for the Caribbean Tourism Organization and the USA Manager for the Barbados Tourism Board. Wilson also managed the New York Watchable Wildlife Program and served as a lecturer on Ecotourism at New York University.

Dr. Zeleke is a native of Ethiopia, operator of Washington DC Legend Tours, and a noted archaeologist with a PhD earned at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He has worked for museums in Russia, the Smithsonian in the United States, and throughout Ethiopia. Previously, he served as Washington chapter president of the Africa Travel Association and was one of the leaders on matters generating more tourism to and within Africa, including a special relationship with the tourism interests at the World Bank. He currently is a research associate for the Museum of Natural History in Washington, has lectured at George Washington University and was one of the archaeologists working in Ethiopia in 1974 who discovered Lucy, the 3.2 million year old fossilized bones of a female human ancestor.