Gustavo Arellano is the editor of OC Weekly in Orange County, Calif., author of Orange County: A Personal History and Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, and lecturer with the Chicana and Chicano Studies department at California State University, Fullerton. He writes "¡Ask a Mexican!," a nationally syndicated column in which he answers any and all questions about America's spiciest and largest minority. Arellano has been the subject of press coverage in national and international newspapers, The Today Show, Hannity, Nightline, Good Morning America, and The Colbert Report, and his commentaries regularly appear on Marketplace and the Los Angeles Times. Gustavo is a lifelong resident of Orange County and is the proud son of two Mexican immigrants, one whom was illegal.

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.

Hal Brody was the owner/publisher of the Pitch in Kansas City from its inception in 1980 until 1999. With some partners he purchased the East Bay Express in 2007. Their first Give! Guide is scheduled for publication this fall.

David Carr writes the Media Equation column for the Monday Business section of The New York Times that focuses on media issues including print, digital, film, radio and television. He also works as a general assignment reporter in the Culture section of The Times covering all aspects of popular culture. For the past 25 years, David has been writing about media as it intersects with business, culture and government.He began working at The Times in 2002 covering the magazine publishing industry for the Business section. Prior to joining The Times, David was a contributing writer for The Atlantic Monthly and New York Magazine. In 2000, he was the media writer for Inside.com, a web news site focusing on the business of entertainment and publishing. Before coming to New York, David served as editor of the Washington City Paper for five years. From 1993 to 1995, he was editor of the Twin Cities Reader and wrote a media column there as well. On August 5, 2008, David's book, "The Night of the Gun," came out on Simon and Schuster. The book is a memoir of addiction and recovery that used reporting to fact check the past. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey with Jill Rooney Carr and has three children. By the way, David will talk about anything, except the hardy AAN perennial, 'What is alternative?' He has no idea.

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.

Margaret Downing has been editor of the Houston Press since February 1998. A member of the AAN membership committee for several years, she was voted onto an at-large position on the AAN board in 2009. A writing editor, she has received a number of national and regional awards from organizations that include: AAN, the Education Writers of America, Missouri Lifestyle, Lincoln University in Missouri (Unity Award), National Mental Health Association, NABJ and the Fort Worth chapter of SPJ (First Amendment awards.) In 2007, her paper won the IRE award in the local circulation weeklies category; it was a finalist in 2009 and this year three of its stories (by two of its reporters) were again finalists in the IRE competition. She has four fulltime staff writers in her newsroom.

Richard Farrell is president of Tangent Knowledge Systems, a
Chicago sales training and development firm. He has been in sales for
25 years and sales training for 10 years. He has authored numerous articles
in international and national publications about his unique nonselling sales process and has had many articles written about his company. He is the author of an upcoming book, "Selling has Nothing to do with Selling."
 

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.

Cassidy Frazier has been the classified director of The Austin Chronicle for the last seven years. Having started in the industry as an account executive during the classifieds boom and seen the rise of Craigslist and various other online competitors, she has since developed a chin as solid as legendary Toronto boxer George "The judges voted for Ali, but he had to be taken to the hospital afterwards while I went dancing with my wife." Chuvalo.

Brian Gentry has been working in the fields of software architecture and application development for 15 years. He has led development efforts to push computing to mobile handsets for clients in the transportation, insurance, financial, and medical industries, integrating legacy systems with modern mobile hardware. He currently is the president of Trestle Development Inc, a software consulting firm, and a founding partner of Chilly Primitive, LLC, a company developing innovative applications for the iPhone, iPad, and other mobile devices.

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.

Marty Griswold in a career spanning some 18+ years in the publishing world, has worked at The Rocket magazine, SF Weekly and currently serves as the sales & marketing director for Seattle's The Stranger and as regional sales director for Index Publishing. Marty's contributions to the business have been marked by great strides in increased revenue, high profile event planning, and the launch of innovative ideas that have garnered both fiscal and creative success within the industry. In recent years, his efforts have contributed to the unparalleled online achievements of The Stranger and sister publication, The Portland Mercury, that have set new standards within the alternative weekly digital world. Marty is also known to be somewhat of a whore when it comes to generating untapped revenues through non-traditional means, which means he is quite at home at The Stranger.

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.

Matt Kettmann is the senior editor at The Santa Barbara Independent, and oversees the paper's website, Independent.com, which was named best weekly website by Editor & Publisher in 2008.

Alice Klein is co-founder and editor/CEO of Toronto's fiercely independent weekly, NOW Magazine and its daily multimedia website nowtoronto.com. Klein's passion for environmental transformation has helped shape NOW's editorial and business leadership in this important area. She also writes regularly about the Canadian and global economy and politics, often from an ecological perspective. She is also a documentary filmmaker (Call of the Hummingbird), on the board of the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI), one of the co-creators of VoteforEnvironment.ca, a founding member of Green Enterprise Ontario (GEO), and on the boards of the Toronto Arts Council (TAC) and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE).

Paul Knight started at the Houston Press in 2007 and has written stories about, among other things, a culture of violence inside the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, the exploits of an East Texas superthief, and a high school basketball team from a crumbling Houston neighborhood. A story Knight wrote about the Toyota Prius was a finalist in the 2010 AAN competition. Before the Press, Knight worked in Alabama for the Mobile Press-Register as a general assignment reporter, covering two small towns on the Eastern Shore of the Mobile Bay.

Jeff Lawrence is the founder and owner of the award-winning Weekly Dig, The Best Little Paper in Boston.

Jeremy Littau has almost 10 years of experience in journalism after working at newspapers of different sizes, specializing in editing and writing both in print and online. He got his start at the Daily Democrat in Woodland, Calif., and did the typical "move up the ladder" part of his career, landing at the Los Angeles Daily News in 2000. He spent four years at the Daily News before returning to school at Missouri. He earned his M.A. in journalism from Missouri in 2007 and his PhD in journalism from Missouri in 2009. Jeremy has extensive experience researching new media trends in journalism and is the author of several publications on the subject, specializing in multiplatform storytelling that makes use of audience conversation in the news process.

Harlan Mandel is deputy managing director of Media Development Loan Fund, a mission-driven investment fund providing low-cost financing to independent news media in countries with a history of media oppression. MDLF has provided over $85 million in loans and equity financing to more than 70 print, broadcast and on-line news outlets in 25 countries, helping journalists in challenging environments build sustainable businesses around professional, responsible, quality journalism. More than 32 million people on four continents get their news from MDLF's current clients. Prior to joining MDLF in 1998, Mandel served as Deputy General Counsel of the Open Society Institute, after practicing law in the New York and Los Angeles offices of Morrison & Foerster.

Andrew Martin is a senior associate with Borrell Associates. Based in Toronto, Andrew has worked for more than 25 years in the media sector. He managed the B2C and B2B online operations for CanWest Global, the largest newspaper publisher in Canada. Before that he ran the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency for seven years. His early career was with LexisNexis, where he was director of textbook publishing for the UK division, before moving to Canada in 1987 to head up their operations in Toronto. He was closely involved in developing CanWest's web strategies and the expansion of their online aggregation businesses. He also contributed to drafting the newspaper industry positions on copyright law reform in Canada. Andrew's current consulting work divides between business and strategic planning, licensing and copyright. Clients include media businesses, government departments, trade associations and libraries in Canada, the US and UK. Andrew has a law degree from the University of Cambridge, and qualified as an UK attorney.

Patricia Martin is an author and noted expert on commerce and culture. She is CEO and founder of LitLamp Communications, an award-winning marketing boutique acclaimed for using culture as a medium to connect brands with communities of consumers. Author of the book "Renaissance Generation: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer and What it Means to Your Business," she pioneered the point of view that the convergence of art, technology and entertainment is remaking the American consumer. A keynote speaker in demand, Patricia brings C-level executives to their feet when she casts the American consumer in a new light and sets the stage for marketing in the 21st Century. Before founding her firm in 1995, Patricia created the first-of-its-kind sponsorship marketing division for the American Library Association. While there, she partnered with some of the world's most recognized brands, including Microsoft, where she built the blueprint for what is now the Gates Library Foundation. Patricia has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, NPR, the Wall Street Reporter, Market Watch, Harvard Business Review, and Advertising Age. She is a frequent contributor to Advertising Age and Huffington Post and lives near Chicago with her daughter, Grace.

Regina McCombs is a faculty member of the Poynter Institute, teaching multimedia, mobile news, social media and programming. Previously, she was the senior producer for multimedia at StarTribune.com in Minneapolis-St. Paul. She arrived there after 13 years as a television producer and photographer at KARE-TV, the NPPA-winning powerhouse in the Twin Cities. Winner of numerous Best of Photojournalism and Pictures of the Year International awards for multimedia storytelling, as well as an Emmy for her video work, she has been a regular speaker around the country, talking about finding new ways to tell stories on the Web, especially with video. For StarTribune.com, she coordinated the multimedia team's coverage, shot and edited video stories, created audio slide shows, produced major projects and trained staff in creating multimedia. She also taught classes in online journalism and TV news at the University of Minnesota, where she received her master's degree.

Richard Meeker has been publisher of Portland's Pulitzer Prize-winning Willamette Week since 1983. Along with co-owner Mark Zusman, his City of Roses Newspaper Company also owns and operates the Santa Fe Reporter and INDY Week.

Simon Owens is a 26-year-old social media consultant and online journalist. Over the years, Simon has secured hundreds of placements on top blogs and social news sites for clients. He has conducted digital PR for both major and small brands and has driven millions of page views for clients, getting them on the front pages of Technorati Top 100 blogs and major social news sites like Digg and Reddit. Simon has been interviewed by reporters from numerous newspapers, television and radio programs about his expertise in new media. His blog, Bloggasm, was launched in late 2005 and focuses on the intersection of new and old media. It often includes in-depth feature articles on a variety of media subjects. The site was named in 2008 as one of PC Magazine's favorite blogs. In that same year it was also nominated for a Weblog Award in the "best large blogs" category. Simon was named the second best Twitter user in DC in 2009 in Washington City Paper's "Best of" issue.

Susan Percy is the founder of Toronto-based MacGrercy Consultants, providing business-skills training and meeting facilitation. Susan helps teams and individuals to become more productive, creative and effective at work. When facilitating group sessions, Susan helps to create a fun atmosphere that encourages collaboration to quickly generate ideas and make plans.

Chris Potter is editor of Pittsburgh City Paper.

Lisa Rab is a staff writer with New Times Broward-Palm Beach.

Ron Reason     Chicago-based design consultant Ron Reason is advising Creative Loafing Media on rethinking editorial and advertising strategies in its various markets. He has worked with an odd array of daily and weekly newspapers and magazines in places like Dubai, London, Chicago, New York, Dallas, Nairobi, Orlando, New Delhi, Santa Fe, Sao Paulo, Reykjavik, Lisbon (Ohio), Venice (Fla.) and Walla Walla (Wash.) He is a visiting faculty member at The Poynter Institute, where he previously served as fulltime Director of Visual Journalism for five years. His email is ron@ronreason.com, and his websites are www.ronreason.com and www.artwithinreason.com

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.

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.

Colby Roberts , a native Vermonter, has been with Seven Days since 1999. He enjoys skiing with his wife and two daughters.

Nicole Rycroft is the founder and executive director of Canopy, a North American non-profit that safeguards forests, species and the climate by harnessing the power of the marketplace and changing business practices. Best known for the greening of Harry Potter, Canopy brokers innovative solutions and works closely with the North American newspaper, print, book and magazine industries. Canopy was one of the lead organizations responsible for securing the world's largest conservation agreement alongide eight other environmental organizations and 21 forestry companies. Covering a massive 70 million hectares, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement was largely driven by green shifts in the marketplace created by the work of Canopy and its market allies with large corporate paper consumers. Nicole leads the strategic direction of Canopy. A firm believer that we could be doing things in a better way, Nicole is committed to ensuring that the power and influence the North American market leverages tangible eco-solutions and on the ground conservation gains for the world's forests, species and climate. Nicole is the recipient of an Ashoka Fellowship, a Canadian Environment Award Gold Medal and numerous print and publishing industry awards. Named one of Canada's 50 Most Influential People in Graphic Communication for the past four years, Nicole sits on numerous boards.

Henry Scott is an experienced journalist and media business executive who currently is vice president/chief marketing officer for Creative Loafing Inc. Before joining CL Media in January 2010, he was managing director of Gansevoort Media, a strategic planning and product development firm focused on the internet, magazines, and the newspaper industry; managing director of Metro New York and group publisher for Metro US; president of Out Publishing; and was with The New York Times Company in a number of positions. Henry, who lives in Atlanta, is a member of the International Newspaper Marketing Association, among other organizations. He is the founder of the North American Free Daily Newspaper Association.

Hank Sims is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and has worked at the North Coast Journal for the last seven years, five as editor. He has written for more than 30 publications as a staff writer and freelancer, including the LA Times, the California Journal, the Anderson Valley Advertiser and the Arcata Eye.

Pam Stephen joined host paper NOW Magazine in 2008 bringing her 20 years of advertising experience from The Globe and Mail and radio. Starting as a sales rep and working through all aspects of sales to round out her knowledge and understanding of what the sales role is all about, she feels fortunate to have an outstanding team that always goes the extra mile. Her expertise is finding the nuggets of revenue that are often overlooked in the marketplace and turning them into profit; of course while building the core business at a more profitable margin. NOW Magazine has enjoyed a 24% increase in readership over the past year which has allowed us to continue to be a strong competitor in a seven-paper city.

Jay Stinson    After 33 years in television and radio promotions, Jay joined host paper NOW Magazine in February 2010 as promotions manager, bringing with her a wealth of knowledge on how to make money through promotions -- something she's been doing since 1992. Taking promotions from a cost centre to a revenue generating department at various media outlets in Canada, Jay knows the challenges one faces along the way: grandfathered clients who have always received "added value" promotions or sales departments who have never sold promotions; but, it is her knowledge, professionalism and boundless creativity and energy that get people excited about the possibilities of having a standalone promotion front and centre in print! Since joining NOW, she has worked with various departments, including editorial, distribution and the publisher's office to ensure that the transition from added value to revenue generating has been a smooth process. In that time, she and the sales department have established a policy where all sponsorships and promotions have a dollar amount attached to them. Jay's vision is very simple: the pages of our publications are our business. Most other companies offer their valued customers discounts, better pricing, even rewards cards but, they do not give their services away so, why do we? Why indeed!

Christopher Twarowski is senior reporter/editor and investigative reporter at the Long Island Press. In 2004, the Press Club of Long Island granted awarded him two first place prizes, for environmental reporting and for political coverage, based on his exposes into illegal dumping and suspicious land-lease agreements in local parks. Christopher's investigations also earned him five FOLIO Awards from the New York Fair Media Council last year. He was hired by the Press's precursor, the New Island Ear, in March 2002 and worked his way up to his current position. He edits the newspaper's electronics columnist and pens "The Fox Hunt," a column on local folklore, as well as a food column. He also writes short stories and poetry. He has a B.S. in English from Sacred Heart University and lives in Brooklyn.

Jan van der Hoop spent more than fifteen years in senior human resources positions with a number of leading corporations, including Hilton International Hotels, PepsiCo and Office Depot. Through his work, Jan developed a clear understanding of the issues and challenges people face in the corporate trenches, along with some insights into how he could help organizations work smarter. As a result in 1998, Jan founded The People Factor -- a training and coaching organization that worked with companies to build their organizational capacity, grow their people and improve their bottom line performance. In eight years, he built an impressive client roster across North America, including Nissan Canada, Procter & Gamble, State Farm and Sleep Country Canada. In 2006, Jan partnered with Tim Brennan to launch HiringSmart in response to a demand from his clients to improve their bottom line results by changing the way they hire.

Mike Volpe is vice president of inbound marketing at HubSpot, an Internet marketing software startup, where he leads the company's lead generation and branding strategy through inbound marketing, including blogging, search engine optimization, video marketing, and social media. Since Mike joined HubSpot, the company has grown from about a dozen beta customers to over 1,200 customers, from five employees to 75 employees, and raised $17 million of venture capital in two rounds of financing. Mike is a cutting-edge B2B inbound marketer who ranks in the top 0.1% of all users on Twitter (@mvolpe) with over 7,500 followers. He also hosts a weekly live marketing video podcast HubSpot TV and blogs frequently. Before HubSpot, Mike worked as director, marketing operations at SolidWorks where he launched a number of inbound marketing initiatives such as SEO, PPC, blogging and podcasting. He is an MBA graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and received his B.A. in Economics and Government, summa cum laude, from Bowdoin College.

Mike Webb    Before joining ProPublica, Mike Webb was the deputy director of communications and strategy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Prior to that, Webb served as publicity and syndication director for The Nation magazine, and in various roles for a number of elected officials. Earlier in his career, Webb held marketing, sales and promotion jobs in the music industry. He is a graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Communication at Ohio University.

John Weiss is Publisher of the Colorado Springs Independent and Co-Chair of Indy Give!

Raven Zachary is president of Small Society, working with big brands, established companies, investors, and startups on iPhone strategy and product development. Raven directed the Obama '08 for iPhone application for the Obama Campaign, and has worked with companies such as Whole Foods Market®, Zipcar℠, CLIF BAR®, and Air New Zealand℠ on iPhone application initiatives. He is the founder of iPhoneDevCamp, a not-for-profit iPhone developer conference. Raven is also a Contributing Analyst with The 451 Group, an IT industry analyst firm and works closely with O'Reilly® Media on iPhone and mobile technology related events and coverage. He is regularly quoted by the press about the iPhone market and is a frequent conference speaker on the topic.

Fran Zankowski

Bradley Zeve founded Monterey County Weekly in 1988. He served on the board of AAN in the mid-1990s (Secretary) and rejoined as Free Speech Chair in 2012. He also served as the president of CAL-AAN. Zeve originally became a member of AAN in 1986 while working at Santa Cruz Sun newspaper. He launched the Monterey County Weekly Community Fund in 2000, which has raised and contributed over $2,850,000 from Weekly readers and local foundations, all to support local nonprofits in Monterey County.