John Raughter is the press secretary for The American Legion National Commander. He has previously served as the editor of The American Legion Magazine, where he has worked since December 1998. He was also a senior writer with The Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C., managing editor of The National Tribune’s Stars & Stripes and a daily newspaper reporter in Rosenberg, Texas.

Raughter enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1983 and served as a public affairs photojournalist at 4th Marine Aircraft Wing headquarters in New Orleans, Marine Corps Logistics Base in Barstow, CA, 3rd Marine Division on Okinawa, and MCAS, Cherry Point, NC.  He was honorably charged as a sergeant. He subsequently earned a B.A. in political science at the University of Houston and a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo. He also graduated from the Defense Information School’s basic (print) journalism course, photojournalism course and editor’s course.

Raughter has written more than 1,000 articles and has interviewed former President George W. Bush, Vice Presidant Mike Pence, former Vice President Al Gore, Sen. John McCain, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, actor James Arness, the late Meet the Press host Tim Russert, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Heavyweight Boxing Champion George Foreman, entertainer Charlie Daniels and dozens of other celebrities and public officials. He spent February 2007 embedded with Marine and U.S. Army units in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

He lives in Indianapolis with his wife Debbie, son Reagan and daughter Erin. He is a member of American Legion Post 500 in Speedway, Indiana.

Jeremy Sinnemaki is the Veterans Employment and Training Services Director at Veterans Florida, where he leads the statewide Veterans Florida career, entrepreneurship, agriculture and SkillBridge programs. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity brought Jeremy to Tallahassee where he served as an Economist before coming to Veterans Florida. Jeremy retired from the United States Air Force and served worldwide at a variety of assignments as an Avionics Craftsman, Air Force Recruiter, and Resource Manager. Following his military career, Jeremy was a civil servant for NASA as a Management and Program Analyst at the Kennedy Space Center. After his federal service, he opened several businesses including XiTiD Corp and Life Without Limits, LLC and later having graduated the Veterans Florida Entrepreneurship Program, went on to open the SolRisa Inn in Cocoa, Florida. Jeremy also serves on the Executive Committee with the Emerald Coast chapter of the Association of the United States Army. He and his wife are in the process of starting a new farm, event center and wedding venue.

Veterans Florida is a non-profit created by the State of Florida to help military veterans transition to civilian life and to promote Florida’s status as the nation’s most veteran-friendly state. Veterans Florida provides powerful tools for veterans to take advantage of the benefits of living and working in the Sunshine State.

Website:  https://www.veteransflorida.org/

Through our Career Services Program, we connect veterans with employers who are eager to hire veterans for jobs that put their particular military skills to use. We also assist veterans in creating a winning resume and preparing for job interviews. Employers receive veteran recruiting assistance and may apply for our Workforce Training Grant.

The Veterans Florida Entrepreneurship Program provides all the knowledge needed to successfully launch and operate a business. As soon as their business is up and running we keep them connected with mentors and resources.

Veterans Florida’s mission can be summed up in our theme – Your Pursuit. Our Power. – because we recognize military veterans are incredibly focused and will succeed in achieving their personal and professional goals when they take advantage of our tools and resources.

Jeremy Sinnemaki

Veterans Employment and Training Services (VETS) Director

Office: (850) 296-7553

Email: sinnemaki@veteransflorida.org

James A. Miller, Jr., PhD is a public education advocate, activist, professor, teacher and independent scholar. For most of his life, he has been involved in and with public education, either as a student, university professor, researcher, substitute teacher and full-time classroom teacher K-12.       

Dr. Miller has held Professorships in Sociology/African-American Studies at Wayne State University, the University of Detroit, California State University at Northridge and Los Angeles, and the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), and has been a Senior Research Associate at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Washington, DC – focusing on creating a five year national research program on the social and cultural foundation of education.

Currently, Dr. James Miller is a radio talk show host on BBS Radio with his new show “The War on Public Education” starting Sunday, February 23, 2014 at 2:00pm PST on Station 1. The format of the show focuses on the corporate war on public education and the rising public resistance movement to the war. His email is jamfilm@yahoo.com and he invites people to write him and express their thoughts.

Adam Weil, CEO of Global Schoolwear, was a former senior director in charge of the school uniforms unit at Lands’ End. “The interesting thing about this business model is that if there are 100 kids in a school, and we go 99 out of 100 in outfitting them, we still don’t win if just one kid is out of uniform. That’s one of our biggest challenges—to have enough of the right inventory available in real time for customers to order.”

But it’s a challenge that Global Schoolwear has learned to control with a customized digital commerce platform, Weil and Kohls say. Earlier this year, they put together a new technology framework designed to match thousands of buyers from hundreds of schools with the just the right mix of Tommy Hilfiger garments according to the style, color and school logos each educational institution requires its students to wear.

Global Schoolwear, which has an exclusive license from designer apparel brand Tommy Hilfiger to produce and sell school uniforms, has contracts with more than 450 schools to provide uniforms according to the specifications set by Tommy Hilfiger and by each school. Global Schoolwear takes Tommy Hilfiger’s garment specifications, then works with textile mills to produce the right garment materials in cotton and other fabrics, and works with apparel manufacturers to produce the garments.

It stocks enough goods in its warehouse-fulfillment center—about 1 million pieces at any one time during peak periods, with about 9,000 SKUs—to meet the expected overall back-to-school demand. As customers place orders on each school’s customized electronic product catalog that runs on Global Schoolwear’s ecommerce platform, each order is coded to indicate the garment type, style and color, plus the logo specifications.