Blair Barna has worked in the world of alt-weeklies for 20 years and is the advertising director of the Charleston City Paper in Charleston, S. C. He founded and co-owns the paper -- now in its sixteenth year -- with his two business partners, publisher Noel Mermer and editor Stephanie Barna. One of them is also his life partner -- he'll leave it up to you to guess which. Barna has two children, three cats, two dogs, and no time to himself. Prior to blazing trails in Chucktown, he worked for Creative Loafing in Savannah and Atlanta.

Jimmy Boegle is the founding editor and publisher of the Coachella Valley Independent in Palm Springs, Calif. He's a former AAN diversity chair and currently serves on the editorial and membership committees. He is a veteran of the Tucson Weekly, Las Vegas CityLife, the Reno News & Review and The Associated Press. He decided to make the move to Palm Springs because the weather in Tucson and Las Vegas simply was not warm enough for him.

Neil Budde joined DailyMe.com, a start-up specializing in news discovery and personalization, in April 2008 after nearly 30 years of news experience -- more than half of it online. He began working in online news at Dow Jones, where he ultimately was founding editor and publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online. Most recently, he was vice president and editor in chief at Yahoo! News, Finance and Sports for three years. His career began in print as an editor and/or reporter at The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., and USA Today. Neil earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Western Kentucky University, where he is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni, and an MBA from the University of Louisville. Neil has been on the board of directors of the Online News Association for four years and treasurer for two years. He also is on the board of the News Literacy Project, the California First Amendment Coalition and the Foundation for American Communications. He is an avid photographer, and you can find his photos on Flickr.

Patricia Calhoun has the world’s shortest resume. After graduating from Cornell University, she founded the SandPaper, a weekly on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. In 1977, she started Westword, an alternative weekly in Denver, where she's been the editor ever since. Her columns have been awarded the Golden Quill, the Unity Award and the national Women in Communications prize, in 2006 and again this year. Her career highlights including serving as the president of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and, interviewing President Bill Clinton (in flip flops!), and playing an actual reporter in John Sayles’s movie Silver City.

Max Cannon is a cartoonist, screenwriter and animator best known as the mastermind behind "Red Meat," a comic strip which is celebrating its 20th anniversary; "Red Meat" appears in about 50 alternative papers across the country. He teaches animation at the Art Center Design College in Tucson, his home since 1974. His only regret is that he chose to enter the alternative-comic field rather than the more lucrative, seemingly recession-proof butt-sex-column field.

Jody Colley is the publisher of the East Bay Express and an at-large board member of AAN. Jody has served on the AAN marketing and classified sales committees and was an executive committee member of the Alternative Weekly Network (AWN). Over the past decade, Jody has been actively involved with local and national organizations that promote sustainable economies and independent business alliances, as well as serving on the boards of merchant associations and business groups.

Rob Curley -- a self-described Internet nerd from Kansas -- is the president and executive editor of Greenspun Interactive, the new-media division of Greenspun Media Group, parent company of AAN-member Las Vegas Weekly. Prior to heading to Las Vegas, he was vice president of product development at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive for two years. He began his career as an education reporter and moved on to management positions in interactive operations and editorial departments. Rob gained national attention when he became one of the first online editors in the nation chosen to lead a news organization's entire print and broadcast news operations. His groundbreaking work has been documented in everything from college journalism textbooks to industry and mainstream magazines and white papers to National Public Radio. The New York Times referred to Rob's work at Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World as "the newspaper of the future," while an Editor & Publisher cover story noted that "the paper's Web innovations are far too numerous to list …."

Steve Delgado is president and group publisher of Portico Publications, Ltd., a company that operates weekly newspapers, monthly and quarterly publications, as well as a number of new media based properties in three southeastern states. During his tenure at Portico, Steve has served as publisher of Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine, one of the southeast's largest travel and adventure publications and as vice president of acquisitions and business development. Portico Publications newspapers and magazines have been widely recognized as industry leaders by state press associations, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, and numerous advertising associations. Prior to joining Portico, Steve worked at HQ for a major retailer in merchandising and marketing where he oversaw $1 billion in transactions and was responsible for the development of a merchandising and marketing system that has been adopted by domestic and international retailers. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Steve received his MBA from The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He serves on the Board of Directors for a Charlottesville based contemporary art gallery and has consulted with numerous non-profit arts based organizations.

Laura Dell strengthens organizations and leaders. Her long-standing consulting practice, focused on developing leaders and expanding capacity, is informed by a startlingly long and varied history serving a wide array of businesses, including several AAN members. Laura holds an M.A. in Organization Development, and her expertise has evolved through 35 years of leading in and consulting to workplaces. She is currently the C.O.O. of a mid-size not-for-profit in the Chicago area where she enjoys ample opportunity to practice what she preaches.

John Dickerson has served as staff writer for Village Voice Media's Phoenix New Times and features editor of The Scottsdale Times. He recently won the Livingston Award for Young Journalists for "Prescription for Disaster," his series on medical regulations in Arizona. His reporting on human rights abuses in the Maricopa County jail has been honored in national awards.
Dickerson now lives in the northern Arizona mountains with his wife, Melanie, who is pregnant with their first child. He is finishing a master's degree in theology and serving at a nondenominational church. He contributes to publications across the country and writes a syndicated column, Horsepower Auto Reviews.

Geoff Dougherty is the editor of the Daily News and CEO of PublicMedia, Inc. Prior to founding the Daily News, he was an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Before that, he served in similar roles at the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times. He has 16 years of journalism experience, has won numerous national awards for his work. While at the Miami Herald, he spearheaded the newspaper's effort to review, count and analyze discarded ballots from the 2000 presidential election.

Sheriff Tony Estrada was born and raised in the border communities of Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Sonora (Mexico). He retired from the Nogales, Ariz., Police Department after 25 years of service, before being elected sheriff of Santa Cruz County in 1992; he's now in his fifth term as sheriff. As a result of this experience, he knows the intricacies of border and immigration issues as well as anybody.

Carol Flagg is a managing partner in HITECH Answers and founder of Pivotal Solution Group. Before going out on her own in 2008, Carol was the advertising director for many years for The Austin Chronicle. She resides outside of Phoenix, Ariz.

Louis Fortis has a very diverse background. For the past decade, Louis has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Shepherd Express and founder of the Milwaukee International Film Festival. He has a Ph.D. in Economics and has taught economics at Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Louis served three terms in the Wisconsin State Legislature and chaired four different committees. In addition to the Shepherd, he currently does some international consulting where he advises parliaments in developing countries on a variety of subjects from legislative/executive relations and oversight to budget issues and effective representation. He has worked is such countries as Uganda, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Mongolia, Bolivia, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Al Giordano was a staff reporter at the Boston Phoenix (1993-1996) and the Valley Advocate (1989-1993) before he left the United States twelve years ago and, he thought, journalism with it. In 1997 he self-published "The Medium Is the Middleman: For a Revolution Against Media," and headed south of the border, where he lived and learned Spanish in the Zapatista rebel communities of Chiapas. In 1999, on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, he found that the Clinton-Zedillo "anti-drug summit" there was held at the hacienda of an alleged drug trafficker, owner of Mexico's largest bank. His 1999 report in the Phoenix, and subsequent reports via the online Narco News sparked an international press freedom battle when the National Bank of Mexico  (now part of Citigroup) sued him for defamation. In 2001, the New York Supreme Court dismissed the bankers' lawsuit and set a new precedent under U.S. law: that Internet journalists would now be protected under "Sullivan v. New York Times." Narco News has just entered its tenth year as a must-read source of investigative journalism throughout the American hemisphere. Through the School of Authentic Journalism (which Giordano founded with the collaboration of the late Gary Webb and other independent journalists) he has intensively trained more than 100 young reporters in how to practice the profession in conflict zones. In September 2007, again through the Phoenix, Giordano published an essay, "Damn You, Barack Obama," that predicted exactly how the then Senator would win the Democratic nomination for President. Through his U.S. politics blog, The Field, Giordano accurately projected the winner of 51 out of 54 primaries and caucuses. Vanity Fair, in its year-end "winners and losers" story declared Giordano "the prophet of the Obama paradigm shift."

Julia Goldberg is the editor of the award-winning Santa Fe Reporter, heralded by a blogger in 2009 as one of the country's most "fabulous" papers, notably for its coverage of domestic violence and wild animals (as separate topics). Julia also serves as the editorial chair for AAN's board of directors.

Seija Goldstein is a nationally recognized expert on regional publishing. Her consulting firm, Seija Goldstein Associates, Inc. (SGA) designs and conducts comprehensive financial standards surveys for several regional publishers' associations, including the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, and maintains an extensive database covering all aspects of regional print and online publishing. In addition, SGA provides a wide range of financial and operational consulting services to media companies and entrepreneurs in magazine, newsletter, newspaper and book publishing industries, as well as in internet and direct marketing. Prior to the founding of SGA in 1992, Ms. Goldstein had twenty years of experience in financial and operational management of media companies. Her past assignments include Director of Acquisitions and Development for CBS Magazines (now Hachette Filipacchi Magazines), General Manager of Home Mechanix and World Tennis magazines and Chief Financial Officer of Communications International, a privately held multi-title magazine and educational publisher. Ms. Goldstein holds a BBA degree from the Helsinki School of Economics and an MBA from Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York. She is an advisor to the University of Missouri School of Journalism on the development of magazine business plans as well as a frequent speaker at publishing conferences.

Rev. Robin Hoover is the founder of Humane Borders, an organization founded in 2000 which includes more than 6,000 volunteers in the United States and Mexico who deploy and maintain water stations and provide humanitarian assistance for migrants at risk of death from dehydration in Southern Arizona deserts. He is the pastor at the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Tucson. He earned his doctorate in political science from Texas Tech University and his master's degree in divinity from the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. He estimates that he's given more than 1,600 media interviews on border and immigration issues since May 2001.

Bill Jensen has a master's degree in religious studies from the University of Kansas, has written about unsolved crimes, punk rock and fisticuffs and played professional roller hockey (earning the first minor penalty in league history). He co-founded the nerd news and self-loathing blog Topless Robot and the Long Island Press newspaper and website (where he hired Amy Fisher as a crime columnist). In 2006, Bill took the digital helm at Village Voice Media to oversee all web and mobile content and platforms for 17 newspapers (including LA Weekly and Village Voice). During his tenure, digital media revenue grew more than 400%, and pageviews and uniques grew from 176 to more than 750 million. Bill also created several mobile apps which have been downloaded more than two million times. Itunes named the "Best Of" app one of the top five travel apps of 2011, and Wired included it in its collection of "400 Essential Apps." In November 2011, Bill moved to Los Angeles where he ran the music content platform for BuzzMEDIA, including Stereogum, Idolator, and SPIN magazine. He now consults newspaper and other media companies to implement new digital strategies and revenue streams. He recently had a development deal with Cartoon Network, and just launched Epic Playgrounds, a non-profit with the singular goal of building the coolest playgrounds in the world.

Jerry Kackley is co-founder and president of K Group and has 25 years of experience as a senior marketing and planning executive. Jerry worked for several premiere consumer-marketing and consulting firms prior to starting his own firm in 1989. After graduate school Kackley joined Booz Allen & Hamilton where he worked for a number of Fortune 500 clients. Jerry headed the strategic planning function for two PepsiCo divisions -- Frito-Lay and North American Van Lines -- and later headed marketing and business development for Marriott Corporation. As President of K Group, Kackley is actively involved in each of the firm’s major client assignments. He is a regular speaker at INFE, INMA and NAA conferences.

Scott Karp is the co-founder and CEO of Publish2, a platform for native advertising and editorial optimization. Scott was previously the Director of Digital Strategy for Atlantic Media. Before joining Atlantic Media, he was a consultant with the D.C. strategic research firm, The Advisory Board.

Tim Keck is the publisher of The Stranger and the president of Index, which also owns the Portland Mercury. Keck and Weekly Alibi Publisher Emeritus Chris Johnson co-founded The Onion in 1988 while they were students at the University of Wisconsin; they sold it to colleagues the following year.

Erin Kilmer-Neel is passionate about supporting local independent businesses and artists as a powerful way to improve the economic health and quality of life of our communities. To that end, she founded Oakland Unwrapped! -- an e-commerce site for Oakland's independent businesses and artists -- and created the Oakland Indie Awards to celebrate and educate consumers about them. Erin now runs these programs through OneCalifornia Foundation where she is a Program Officer. She serves on the board of the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), and is an active member of BALLE, as a member of the board of directors and chair of the Marketing Committee of the Oakland BALLE network (The Oakland Merchant Leadership Forum). Erin is head over heels in love with Oakland, her work, and most of all, her kick-ass husband Beau.

Stacy Mitchell is a senior researcher with the New Rules Project, a program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance that challenges the wisdom and inevitability of economic consolidation and works to advance policies that support strong local economies and vibrant communities. Mitchell has served as an advisor to numerous small business groups, elected officials, and community organizations, and has helped dozens of cities and towns implement new land use and economic development policies that strengthen locally owned businesses. Her best-selling book, "Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses" (Beacon Press, 2006), was named one of the top ten business books of the year by Booklist. Mitchell also chairs the American Independent Business Alliance and is vice president of the Portland (Maine) Independent Business and Community Alliance.

Colin Murray has been with Isthmus Publishing since 2003, currently holding the position of advertising manager. He began his media career at the Madison Times, a small, weekly, multi-cultural newspaper, where he concentrated on and grew classified advertising sales. He later worked at Erickson Publishing as a sales representative, contributing to such publications as Anew (now Brava) Magazine, Dane County Kids, Now Hiring and Badgerland Sports for Kids. Colin has an extensive business background in Madison. He is currently a member of American Advertising Federation - Madison Chapter, the Board of Directors for Dane Buy Local and the planning committee for Madison Business Alliance (a local LGBT business group).

Jeff Ostiguy is vice president of g8wave. One of g8wave's first U.S. employees, he assumed the primary responsibility of overseeing the launch of g8wave's domestic operations in early 2004. Since then, he has overseen the launch of g8wave's mobile multimedia platform and has successfully developed strategic partnerships with other content providers, media agencies, and national brands. He has been with g8wave's parent organization, Phoenix Media Communications Group, since 1999. During this time, he has held various management positions within the organization, all working directly with media clients. Jeff is a recognized industry authority on mobile strategy development and an active member of numerous industry organizations, including the American Marketing Association and The CTIA, as well a regular contributor to various industry publications.

Mark Potts calls himself a "recovering journalist" and blogs about new ways for an audience to receive, create and interact with news, information and advertising. After 15 years as a journalist for The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and other major news organizations, Mark cofounded WashingtonPost.com, was on the founding team of the @Home Network and created and cofounded Backfence.com, the leading hyper-local user-generated citizens media company. He now provides strategic, product and business consulting services to leading media and Internet companies.

Tim Redmond is executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and AAN first amendment chair.

Cathy Resmer is the associate publisher and web editor for Vermont's Seven Days.

Katie Risch manages Centro's strategic, ongoing relationships with more than 6,000 local, regional and national publishers in the company's platform. Centro manages more than half of all national and regional advertising that reaches these local sites across the US. Katie is one of Centro's longest-tenured professionals, having worked as a media planner for automotive accounts and movie studios with Centro Parent Integrent. Like many working with digital newspapers today, Katie started in print as a sales account executive for the Cincinnati Enquirer. She holds a BA in English from Indiana University.

Jim Rizzi is publisher of Salt Lake City Weekly. Jim has nearly 30 years experience in the alternative weekly publishing business. The first 21 years of his career were with New Times (now Village Voice Media), and the last nine years with Salt Lake City Weekly. Jim serves as marketing chair for AAN and has done so since 2004.

Robby Robbins is the multimedia sales manager at the Santa Barbara Independent. With nearly 25 years in the newspaper industry, he brings his straightforward, no-nonsense, ever-changing approach to staff and product management. With time spent in the daily world and now at his second Independent, he has pretty much tried it all and kept what works. Robby served on the AAN board of directors from 2002 to 2009.

Rick Rodriguez is the Cronkite School’s first Carnegie Professor specializing in Latino and transnational news coverage. The former executive editor of the Sacramento Bee in Sacramento, Calif., and the first Latino president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors came to the Cronkite School in 2008 to develop a new cross-disciplinary specialization in the coverage of issues related to Latinos and the U.S.-Mexico border. While he was at the Bee, the paper won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. Rodriguez is known nationally as a champion of watchdog journalism and newsroom diversity.

Paula Routly has been working as a journalist in Vermont since 1983, when she graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in French and Italian. In January 1995 she created an arts paper--Vox--for Vermont Times with Pamela Polston. After learning that Vermont Times and Vox were for sale, the duo launched Seven Days -- in six head-spinning weeks. Although she was a writer and editor before Seven Days, and still serves in both capacities at the paper, Paula also runs the business side of the media company. She has shaped the development of the newspaper's numerous ancillary products, including the 7 Nights dining guide, the NOW e-newsletter, the What's Good student guide, Vermont 3.0: Creative Tech Career Jam and a local online car search called Auto Finder. She also oversees the company's finances, management and marketing efforts. For six years, she served on the board of directors of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.

Stewart Sallo is the founder, owner and publisher of Boulder Weekly, an award-winning alternative weekly in its 16th year of publication in the beautiful and progressive city of Boulder, Colorado. After receiving a B.A. degree in Sociology, cum laude, from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Sallo had a humble beginning in the newspaper business as an account executive for the now-defunct Santa Cruz Express, in 1981. The following year opportunity knocked and Sallo became the owner/publisher of Student Guide, a quarterly paper. In 1984, a second paper, Summer Santa Cruz, was founded by Sallo's growing company, Santa Cruz Advertising & Design, which was also building a clientele as a full-service advertising and design agency. In 1992, Sallo sold his business interests in Santa Cruz to relocate to Boulder and fulfill a 10-year dream of publishing an alternative weekly. On August 19, 1993 the first edition of Boulder Weekly was published, and the paper will celebrate its 16th anniversary this year. Sallo lives with his wife of ten years, Mari, and nine-year-old daughter Mia. His older daughter, Julia, will begin her junior year at the University of Colorado in Boulder this fall and works as his personal assistant at Boulder Weekly, carrying the title "Heiress."

Dan Savage is The Stranger's editorial director and syndicated sex columnist. He has written four books, including "Savage Love," a collection of his advice columns, "Skipping Towards Gomorrah," "The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family," and "The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Get Pregnant," an award-winning memoir about adoption. Dan is also a media pundit who's appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher," "The Colbert Report," "20/20," MTV, VH1, and "Larry King Live" and "Anderson Cooper 360," among others.

Anne Schindler  was hired as a staff writer at Folio Weekly in 1995, and took over as editor in 2003 following a bloodless coup. She previously worked as a contributing writer for the now-defunct Twin Cities Reader in Minneapolis. Anne has won several AltWeekly Awards, including in the Investigative Reporting category.

Josh Schuler has a passion for selling -- the right way. In his tenure as the Director of Sales & Marketing for NUVO in Indianapolis, the paper has enjoyed double-digit growth in readership (21%) and local display revenue (11%). He credits his team's ability to perform in a difficult environment to a passion for creating strong business and NFP partnerships that benefit the community en masse. Josh is also a member of the Ruxton Digital Media Network Publishers' Advisory Committee, member-at-large of the Board of Directors for the Indianapolis International Film Festival, volunteer educator for the Julian Center (United Way) and pitcher for the NUVO-sponsored champion kickball team, The Runs. Prior to joining NUVO in 2006, Josh won numerous awards for sales excellence, including ranking among the Top 25 representatives nationally for three different Fortune 500 companies.

Amy Silverman is managing editor at Phoenix New Times, where she's worked for 16 years, covering everything from John McCain to a Phoenix artist who takes a daily photograph of her children -- naked. Amy has won several national awards and has twice been named Journalist of the Year by the Arizona Press Club. In her off hours, Amy blogs at www.girlinapartyhat.com; she's also an occasional commentator for KJZZ, the local National Public Radio affiliate, sharing stories of her life, particularly regarding her family, which includes her 6-year-old daughter Sophie, who has Down syndrome. Amy's work has appeared on the radio show This American Life, and in publications including the New York Times, Travel + Leisure and salon.com. A Phoenix native, Amy has a B.A. in American Studies from Scripps College in Claremont, California, and a masters degree from Columbia University's School of Journalism in New York City.

Todd Stauffer is the publisher of the Jackson Free Press, as well as the author or co-author of over 35 books on computing, technology and the internet, including his latest, "How to Do Everything with Your Web 2.0 Blog" (McGraw-Hill/Osborne). He's been a television host and writer, radio host, magazine editor and trainer, mostly about techie crap, but sometimes about cars and travel.

Andy Sutcliffe is the General Manager of Salt Lake City Weekly. He has been a part of the alternative newsweekly community for over twenty years as a publisher, vendor, entrepreneur and consultant.

Mark Wolly is a senior ad serving consultant, working to help large publishers get started with Google Ad Manager. Prior to Google, he was the director of business operations and of production/sales engineering for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. In his spare time, Mark enjoys spending time with his 15-month old son, playing Ultimate frisbee, and exploring San Francisco.