Guests
Anietra Hamper is an award-winning published travel writer and photographer and owner of ThreeWordPress. She is the author of the award-winning book Secret Columbus (Reedy Press) and 100 Things To Do In Columbus Before You Die (Reedy Press). Her travels take her around the world covering destinations, adventure travel and fishing for regional and national publications including Planetware.com, AAA, USAToday, Game & Fish, FIDO Friendly magazine, TourismOhio, Columbus Parent Magazine and official Visitor Guides for several counties in Ohio. Anietra’s quick rise in the travel writing industry led to her admission into the prestigious Society of American Travel Writers. As a Columbus, Ohio native and owner of ThreeWordPress, Anietra writes corporate marketing content for websites, blogs, videos and Apps. She is an executive speech coach and on-camera talent for corporate videos, commercials and television shows. Before starting her own business, Anietra spent nearly 20 years as a top-rated television news [...]
David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful investment firms. Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards. Mr. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show on Bloomberg TV and PBS. He lives in Maryland. David Rubenstein grew up an only child in a Jewish family in Baltimore. His beginnings were modest. His father was employed by the United States Postal Service and his mother was a homemaker. He graduated from the college preparatory high school Baltimore City College, at the time an all-male school, and then from Duke University, where he was [...]
Bob Kendrick was named President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) in March 2011 His appointment marked a celebrated return to the NLBM after a 13-month departure. Kendrick became the museum’s first Director of Marketing in 1998 and was named Vice President of Marketing in 2009 before accepting the post as Executive Director of the National Sports Center for the Disabled-Kansas City in 2010. In his role at the NLBM, Kendrick is responsible for the museum’s day-to-day operations and the development and implementation of strategies to advance the mission of the 501 c3, not-for-profit organization. Since rejoining the NLBM in 2011, he has helped orchestrate a more than $10 million turnaround that has helped the NLBM regain its vitality and financial stability. Kendrick began his association with the NLBM as a volunteer during his 10-year newspaper career with The Kansas City Star. As senior copywriter for The Star’s Promotions Department, he won, [...]
Carmaletta Williams, Executive Director of the Black Archives of Mid-America, is of the fourth generation of Taylors who migrated from Tennessee as part of the Exoduster Movement to Topeka, Kansas and is a third-generation Taylor born and raised in what is known as the 54th Street neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri. Williams received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in English from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and her Ph. D. in English from the University of Kansas. After 28 years as a Professor of English and African American Studies, Williams retired from Johnson County Community College. To further her quest to teach on every continent, except for the frozen ones, she included Central China Normal University in Wuhan, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China, to the School of Communication Studies in Accra, Ghana, Teaching Toni Morrison in Translation in Paris, France; L’ecole Nationale d’Postes et Communications [...]
Elizabeth Hennessy is a geographer and assistant professor of history, history of science, and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is a Vilas Associate and sits on the steering committee of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Culture, History, and Environment. She completed her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has done research in the Galápagos since 2007. Elizabeth Hennessy as a geographer works at the intersection of environmental history, political ecology, science and technology studies, and multispecies studies with a regional focus on Latin America. Her first book, On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden was published by Yale University Press in 2019 and longlisted for a 2020 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. The book draws on ethnographic and archival research to trace a transnational history of the iconic Galápagos giant tortoises as animals at the center of tensions [...]
Michael Adams is the son of photographer Ansel Adams. Born August 1, 1933, in Yosemite National Park, CA, he attended local schools through the 9th grade and then graduated from Wasatch Academy (12th grade), Mt. Pleasant, UT, in 1951. Michael attended Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 1951-1953, and then joined the United States Air Force as an Aviation Cadet. Upon graduating from pilot training in 1955, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant and sent to Vance AFB, OK, for B-26 transition training. Michael was then ordered to Korea. However, when arriving in Japan, his assignment was changed to Northern Japan and the 4th Fighter Group at Chitose Air Base on Hokkaido. Michael spent two years with the 334th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group at Chitose flying the F-86F “Sabre” and the T-33A, with opportunities to travel throughout Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Upon returning to the United States in [...]
Kendol Bacchus brings to today’s world-music soundscape a pianism that is eclectic, melodic, and deeply emotional. His varied approaches to piano music offer unique poetic genres and colors. You will find his music to be both reflective and introspective. He was born on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1967 when music was going through all kinds of interesting changes. Song writers in the pop world were exploring new harmonies, electronica, and instrumentation. This world surrounded Kendol as he grew up. He was wired and tuned into an extreme mix of classical music at home, pop music on the radio with strong Afrocentric, West Indian influences, and the American sound of those times- these all alongside the most varied and amazing church-based music. Improvising from his single-digit years, and playing Beethoven and Mozart from around age 10, Kendol saw the piano in his home as an [...]
Leslie Riley's done just a little bit of everything. Her non-linear path has given her opportunities to travel the world, study human dynamics, and live life to the fullest every minute. She calls herself a “Life Enthusiast” because if there’s some kind of challenge most people don’t want to tackle…she’ll give it a try. From running an ultra-marathon to taking lessons to master the flying trapeeze, Leslie doesn’t know the meaning of the words, “I can’t.” Leslie decided early on to take the road less traveled, which led her to The U.S. Military Academy at West Point after high school. Leslie spent four years there pursuing a degree in Portuguese (including a summer program in Brazil, which hooked her irrevocably on international travel) before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. She spent seven years as an Aviation officer flying CH-47D Chinook helicopters, including tours in Kosovo & [...]
‘Chez’ Chesak is a travel writer, 20-year veteran of the outdoor and travel industries and is Executive Director of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. While he’s lived all over the U.S. and traveled to more than 30 countries, he has the most fun when he’s exploring with his wife Sally, and two daughters. An avid outdoors person and writer, he’s happiest on a trail, on skis, or nestled into a sleeping bag. He was deployed to Iraq in 2005 with a U.S. Army line unit and you can read more about him at www.chezconnects.com. Chez Chesak's works have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Good Housekeeping, Rachel Ray Every Day, Ohio magazine, Cincinnati magazine, and more than a dozen other outlets. A graduate of Wesleyan University, he majored in English and Government (and minored in small college football). He is an award-winning adventure travel writer, 20+ year veteran of the [...]
Grace Fujimoto is the VP of Acquisitions at Avalon Travel, an imprint of Perseus Books, a Hachette Book Group company, where she oversees the process of finding and contracting new authors for Moon Travel guidebooks. She has been with Avalon since 2000 and has helped develop a number of new titles and new series, including Moon California Road Trip and Moon USA National Parks. Her work on Moon guides has inspired and informed trips to Australia, the Florida Keys, the Saguenay Fjord, Colombia, and Peru. The country she travels to most often, Japan, will finally be covered in a new Moon Handbook that releases in February 2020, in time for her next trip. Grace Fujimoto has also done stints in textbook publishing and as a volunteer at the San Francisco Visitor Information Center. In Grace's words, Moon Books are the best because, "I think Moon is the best guidebook for [...]
Meet John Schneider. It would be impressive enough for an actor to star in a single show that changed the course of television history with iconic characters and cross-generational appeal, but the fact that John Schneider’s done exactly that on a consistent basis for at least four decades makes him nothing short of legendary. Whether it’s currently playing Jim Cryer on Tyler Perry's The Haves and the Have Nots, previously immortalizing Jonathan Kent on Smallville and Bo Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard, or showing off his own fancy footwork Dancing with the Stars, the man of many hats is synonymous with success and one of most ubiquitous faces in all of pop culture. Add in a simultaneous career as a four-time chart-topping country artist with over 20 albums to his credit, including a whopping 72 tracks within the last year alone, alongside a burgeoning movie career with executive producer [...]
Alan Ross is an internationally respected master photographer and educator who worked side-by-side with Ansel Adams as his photographic assistant. He knows Adams’ approach and technique perhaps better than any other photographer today. During Ross’ early professional days, a trio of mentors helped shape and refine his career. They were aerial photographic pioneer William Garnett, Ross’ photography professor at the University of California, Berkeley; San Francisco fine art and commercial photographer Milton Halberstadt, who gave Ross his first job as a photographic assistant; and the legendary Ansel Adams, with whom Ross worked for more than a decade and who eventually entrusted him to be the exclusive printer of the Ansel Adams Yosemite Special Edition print collection. (Ross continues this work today, still printing from Adams’ original negatives.) As an artist, Alan Ross is best known for his tonally exquisite black-and-white photographs of the American west; his photographs hang in collections [...]
