Lori Peters is a writer who has been published and featured in several media outlets including Huffington Post, Your Tango, Brides, Fox News Magazine and more. Lori’s first book, Getting Married At Last: My Journey From Hopelessness To Happiness is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

She also provides numerous professional and fun presentations around happiness and well-being for various types of audiences. Her Happiness Hangout® Radio Show on bbsradio has gained thousands of listeners as she and her guests dive into deep and interesting topics around personal relationship happiness.

Lori Peters is proud of her 25 year career in higher education. Currently, she is a College Educator teaching Counseling and has been doing personal development presentations for over 25 years. Currently, she facilitates Live Happy-Live Better, a customizable program for various audiences who want to enhance their happiness in personal or professional relationships or increase wellbeing in their life. She has volunteered on a national level for thirty years and had the opportunity to be part of a team that runs a major non-profit with over 100,000 members. She is passionate about work-life balance, relationships, and helping people to feel their best during times of challenge. Lori earned her Bachelors in Business and Masters in Counseling and Higher Education.

Gloria La Riva is a labor, community and anti­-war activist based in San Francisco, California. Born in Albuquerque, N.M., Gloria attended Brandeis University where she was active in affirmative action struggles.

Gloria has been a key organizer of many mass demonstrations and other actions opposing the wars and occupation in Central America, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and elsewhere.

Gloria has worked for decades to defend Cuba’s sovereignty and against the U.S. blockade. She was awarded Cuba’s Friendship Medal in 2010, approved by the Council of State, for her many years of Cuba solidarity, and is the national coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five.

Gloria has traveled to Venezuela many times since the election of Hugo Chávez to president in 1998, most recently in December 2014. She has engaged in discussions with leading members of the Bolivarian Revolution, including the late president, as well as current president Nicolás Maduro.

Gloria has been active in the struggle for immigrant rights, organizing for and speaking at many mass marches in California over the past 30 years. In the early 1990s, she was the initiator of the Farmworkers Emergency Relief campaign, following a disastrous freeze that left tens of thousands of Central Valley agricultural workers with no income.

Gloria organized support for the Black Fire Fighters Association in their struggle to end racist and sexist discrimination in the San Francisco Fire Department in the 1980s.

A long­time supporter of LGBTQ rights, Gloria participated in the first National March for Lesbian and Gay rights in 1979 and subsequent national marches. She joined in the marches and rallies protesting the passage of the anti­-marriage­ equality Prop 8 in California. She has joined picket lines defending women’s reproductive health clinics.

In 1998 Gloria produced the award­-winning video, Genocide by Sanctions: The Case of Iraq, documenting the effects of the U.S./UN blockade on Iraq. In 1999, she traveled twice to Yugoslavia with former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, at the height of the U.S./NATO bombing war, producing the video, NATO Targets. In September 2005, six days after Hurricane Katrina, Gloria traveled to New Orleans, producing the video Heroes Not Looters. In 2014, she traveled to Ferguson during the uprising there in the wake of the police murder of Michael Brown.

Gloria is a blogger for LiberationNews.org, where she has written extensively on Latin America and many other issues.

In 1994 and 1998, Gloria was Peace & Freedom Party’s candidate for governor of California. She ran as a socialist candidate for mayor of San Francisco in 1983, finishing third overall and second in every working­-class neighborhood. She was the 2008 presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. She is the elected Executive Vice President of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, Communications Workers of America, Local 39521.

Follow Gloria's blogs:

https://www.liberationnews.org/author/gloria_la_riva/

Follow Gloria on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/glorialariva

Katya is a new mommy and author of  I WAS MADE TO DO THIS – Inspirational Guide For Natural Pregnancy and Natural Childbirth, the creator of the web community,  happiness coach and the teacher of INSPIRED PREGNANCY Online Class. She writes for Collective Evolution and Natural News and gives private sessions on how to get and stay happy and inspired all throughout pregnancy and beyond.



Her pregnancy story is off the charts. In just 9 months she transformed from a busy over-thinking, paralyzed by fear city girl with cigarette in one hand RedBull in another, to vegan non-smoking, gardening meditating and writing self-help books mommy. And the happiest person she knows.



Her transformation and success inspired her so much, that she desperately wanted to share it with other women, to help them get over their fears, to help inspire and empower them. That is why the book I WAS MADE TO DO THIS came to life, along with the website that collects all information and inspiration for natural pregnany and natural childbirth.



Now she is starting a brand new online class called INSPIRED PREGNANCY where she will share with you all she knows about how to get and stay happy and inspired all throughout pregnancy and afterwards into motherhood, how to stay happy and centered through all the discomforts of pregnancy and labor, how to love yourself and set loving boundaries and so much more.

Dr. Terry L. Maple is best known for his visionary leadership in revitalizing the Atlanta Zoo in the aftermath of one of the most publicized scandals in the history of American zoos. He was appointed director in 1984 and in 1985 founded and became CEO of Zoo Atlanta, a nonprofit corporation formed to operate the zoo. Zoo Atlanta’s privatization started a trend in the zoo industry. Former Mayor Andrew Young hailed Zoo Atlanta as the most successful privatization in Georgia history.  The zoo won five awards for excellence in exhibit design and conservation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). 

Dr. Maple is the author and editor of more than 200 scientific publications, including ten books, and a past president of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), where he established the association’s first diversity initiative, worked to differentiate AZA institutions from roadside attractions, and strengthen the association’s scientific network. 

He is internationally recognized as an expert on the behavior, welfare, and conservation of great apes. 

Maple taught at Emory University and at the Georgia Institute of Technology for 30 years. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of the Pacific and a Master's degree and Ph.D. in psychobiology from the University of California at Davis.

Dr. Maple retired from Zoo Atlanta in 2003 and became President/CEO of the Palm Beach Zoo in 2005.

He has been an advisor and consultant to the World Wildlife Fund, the African Wildlife Foundation, the Wildlife Society, the Walt Disney Company, and the National Institutes of Health and chairman of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, and received a presidential appointment as a member of the National Museum Services Board.

Dr. Maple is currently the Professor in Residence and Director of Wildlife Wellness at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, where he is continuing his long legacy of promoting animal welfare and wellness.

FISHER FIFTEEN

When Fisher Fifteen walks into a room, it’s like a preacher has come to give a life changing sermon. He delivers a familiar presence like an old friend you haven’t seen in years. From the first strike of his guitar chord to the last barrage of soaring vocal melodies packaged neatly in a voice that carries a lushness and texture all it’s own. Bringing his vast background of influence and an array of thought-provoking original love songs, He has a way of speaking to your soul just where it is. Always celebrating our differences and yet forging common ground through songs like “Walls”. From his latest release.” I love the way a song takes on a life of her own. Fisher Explains, “She begins to speak to me with chords and words , then concepts and conclusions. If I don’t pay close attention, I won’t be able to complete her thought”.A native son of San Jose ,California, raised on radio of the 70’s and 80’s Fisher has a unique repertoire of covers that may surprise even the most knowledgeable history buff with classic rock anthems to memorable R&B staples. Always giving a new interpretation to an old favorite.

From the coffee house to the coliseum, Fisher can bring his performance to a very intimate place with some tongue & cheek lyrics and improvisational songs. Over the years, Fisher has played across the country,in places like California, Nebraska, Louisiana , the Carolinas, Alaska and Japan. He has shared the stage with such rock acts as P.O.D , and Switchfoot and performed with R&B sensations , ALL 4 ONE ,Drew Seeley, Brian Mcknight and Wayne Brady.

PAT BATTISTINI

The writer/director/editor of over ten short films is a native of Merrillville, Indiana. Pat began his career as an actor at the Player’s Workshop of the Second City in Chicago. He continued working in improvisation and eventually performed in over 500 improv shows. Pat suffered having to work for Club Med in their Entertainment Department in places such as St. Lucia, Thailand and Tahiti. Continuing to have fun in Asia, Pat moved to Tokyo where he collaborated with an all Japanese comedy group for two years performing in the Japanese language.

Only making sense, he moved to Miami after his Tokyo gig, where he started his filmmaking career. Pat finally made his way to Los Angeles in the fall of ’98.

In LA, he has written and produced several short films. His shorts “Sexy Seniors”, “Braggin’ Rights”, and “Three Specials” have all been nominated to at least one film festival as a finalist to their Grand Jury Award. “Lincoln Vs. Bush has been viewed over 81,000 times and has been shown, in controversy, in several other festivals. His short, “Legs To Stand On”, dealing with the disabled, received a Special Recognition Award at the Los Angeles Italian American Film Awards.

Pat’s current project is his most challenging. He shot a period piece short film in the northern mountains of Italy. Not fluent in Italian, Pat decided to shoot the film in the Italian language because he felt his story could only be told using the language of the time.

Pat resides in Santa Clarita with his wife Marnie and his two children, Maggie (10) and Burke (5).

JORGE BALBAS

Jorge Balbás grew up in Madrid, Spain. He moved to the US in 1992 for professional flight training. While working as a commercial pilot and flight instructor in Southern California, he obtained a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics at UCLA in 2000, and a PhD in Mathematics in 2004, also at UCLA. He spent the next three years at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as a post-doc, and returned to Southern California in 2007 to join the mathematics department at California State University, Northridge, where he is an Associate Professor. Since August of 2015, he works as Associate Director at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, located in the UCLA campus.

In 2008, Jorge started competing in triathlon races. Since then, he has completed several olympic distance and long course triathlons, qualifying for the US Age Group Nationals every year since 2011. In July 2010 he swam across the strait of Gibraltar, and has also run the LA marathon in 2014 and 2016. He enjoys bike touring and has traveled over 900 miles along roads in Northern Spain over the last two summers.