Books Inc.

Brooke Simler Smith is the Executive Director of COMPASS (Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea), which works to communicate ocean conservation science to policy-makers and the media. Since 1999, COMPASS has facilitated the promotion of ocean science stories in the news, connected leading marine researchers to decision-makers to ensure policy discussions are informed by the latest science and by scientists themselves, and catalyzed new scientific research intended to respond to ocean policy needs. Brooke's experiences are in ocean sciences and ocean policy, connecting science to policy and the public, state and federal environmental policy, and program and organizational management. Prior to joining COMPASS in 2001, Brooke worked for the federal government, consulting firms, and non-profits all focused on environmental issues including oceans, federal lands, and Native American environmental justice issues. She has an M.S. from Oregon State University's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences with a focus on marine policy, a bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Duke University, sits on advisories boards of various ocean conservation non-profits and science enterprises, and was a Donella Meadows Leadership Fellow. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Evan, her daughter, Wren and her dog, Mallory.

Patrick Plonski is Vice Chairman of the trustees. Mr. Plonski is the Executive Director of Books For Africa (BFA). BFA is a non-profit organization based in St. Paul , MN which has shipped over twenty million books to various countries in Africa and it has partnered with GRO to deliver twenty five thousand books to Anuak refugees in Kenya and Sudan . Prior to taking on the role of BFA executive director, Mr. Plonski served for five years as director of the Minnesota Agricultural Education Leadership Council (MAELC), a 16-member council established by the Minnesota Legislature to improve and restructure agricultural education in Minnesota at all levels. Mr. Plonski, who holds a Master of Arts in History with an emphasis on International Economics, is currently a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) student at University of Minnesota , focusing on International Development.

Sadie Hess is the co-founder and SLS Director for COMPASS, LLC. She first learned about the SLS program during her college internship, serving as a caregiver for two clients with a local agency. In 1996, when that agency decided they could no longer provide services, Sadie and her business partner knew they needed to take action to protect the clients they had come to know, respect, and serve. Within two months, they founded COMPASS and opened the doors to ten clients in Redding, CA. Today, COMPASS, LLC serves over 50 clients in five counties, still serving the two ladies who introduced her to the program over 12 years ago. COMPASS has also adapted Supported Living into a program that successfully serves the elderly population. Working together with her husband Eric, she counts it her joy to professionally and personally be committed to COMPASS. Eric and Sadie have two children, Trinity and Ryan, who complete her joy.

Victoria Law is a writer, photographer, mother and co-founder of Books Through Bars--NYC. She edits the zine "Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison" Her new book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM Press, 2009) is the culmination of 8 years of research, writing and listening to the stories of women incarcerated nationwide. She also presents "Don't Leave Your Friends Behind," a workshop on the need for community support of radical mothers and children and is currently co-editing an anthology of the same name.

Saverio Rondelli is a Partner of Compass, Rondelli Advisers, founded in Milan, Italy in 2006. With over fifteen years in the corporate finance industry, Mr. Rondelli brings to Compass his extensive experience in acquisitions, tender offers, divestitures, leveraged acquisitions/buyouts, mergers, and IPOs. His international focus includes tenures with such firms as West LB AG, where he headed the Italian M&A practice, Citigroup (ex-Schroder Salomon Smith Barney), UBS and Montedison. Mr. Rondelli has been involved in transactions spanning a broad range of industries including building materials, packaging, retail, internet/B2B, automotive, hi-tech, real-estate, consumer goods, oil & gas, catering, media & entertainment, insurance, pharmaceuticals and aerospace. He has developed an in-depth coverage of the Italian Financial Sponsors industry, working alongside both international and domestic private equity funds. Among other transactions, he advised Candover in the acquisition of Ferretti Group, the largest Italian LBO of 2006. Mr. Rondelli has worked with Italian and international clients including, among others: SEAT PagineGialle (I), Pirelli (I), Montedison (I), Autogrill (I), Brembo (I), TOTAL (F), Solvay (B), Blue Circle Industries (UK), Dixons (UK), the Greek government, SIG (CH), Holcim (ex-Holderbank) (CH), RR Donnelley (US), Corn Products Inc. (US), and Eureko (NL). Mr. Rondelli completed a degree in business administration at Bocconi University in Milan.

Andrew O'Hagan was born in Glasgow in 1968. He is published by Faber & Faber in the UK and is translated into 16 languages. His first book, The Missing, was published in 1996. His novel Our Fathers was shortlisted for the Booker and Whitbread Prizes and won the Winifred Holtby Prize for Fiction. His second, Personality, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2003, he was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. A third novel, Be Near Me, was published in 2007 and won this year's Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. His book of essays, The Atlantic Ocean, came out in June 2008. Andrew has been an Ambassador for Unicef since 2000. He is a director of the London Review of Books, a trustee of the George Orwell Prize, a patron of the Scottish Book Trust, and is editor-at-large of Esquire Magazine. He was recently made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Strathclyde.

Christopher Flannery is a professor of politics and Director of the Humanities Program at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California, and senior editor of the Claremont Review of Books. Prior to teaching at Azusa Pacific University, he served as Vice-President of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Claremont Graduate School in Government, and an M.A. in International History from the London School of Economics and Political Science at the University of London. He has served as a member of the California Department of Education Review Team for Draft National Standards for Civics and Government, and as a consultant to the California Department of Education with respect to civics education and textbook assessment. Some of his recent publications include "Tender of the Flame," a contribution to The American Scholar, "Pedagogical Uses of Federalist 10," "Geography and Power," and essay in Statecraft and Power: Essays in Honor of Harold W. Rood, and "Educating Citizens," published in Moral Ideas for America.

Dimitri Nasrallah was born in 1977, during the Lebanese civil war. In 1981, his family went into exile, living in Athens, Kuwait, and Dubai before immigrating to Canada in 1988. He received a Bachelor's degree from York University in 2001, and then a Master's degree from Concordia University in 2003. He currently lives in Montreal. His first novel, Blackbodying, has received national acclaim in Canada. The novel won the 2005 Quebec Writer's Federation McAuslan First Book Prize, and was a finalist for the 2005 Grand Prix Du Livre de Montreal and a 2005 Independent Publishers' Book Prize. Apart from his creative work, he is a cultural critic whose writing has appeared in the Montreal Gazette, Montreal Review of Books, Exclaim!, Toronto's Eye Weekly, and Urb.

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Kimberly joined COMPASS in August 2006 as the Ecosystem-Based Management Science Coordinator. Based at Oregon State University, Kimberly works to synthesize and communicate scientific knowledge about Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) in marine systems. By reviewing EBM case studies and fostering communication between interested parties, she nurtures enhanced understanding of how EBM can be implemented successfully. Kimberly's background is in marine ecology with an interest in conservation and management-relevant science. She received her B.A. in Biology from New College of Florida and her Ph.D. from Stanford University, where she studied anthropogenic and biological influences on the distribution of invasive species in estuaries.

Matthew W. Wright is a trial lawyer. Mr. Wright holds a preeminent-AV rating, which is the highest rating in the Martindale-Hubbell national registry of preeminent attorneys. Mr. Wright's practice involves representing school districts in trial, administrative hearings, and on risk management issues. He routinely presents at seminars for school districts concerning risk management issues. Similarly, he advises the Arizona School Risk Retention Trust concerning proposed legislation for the benefit of school districts. Mr. Wright also handles a volume of commercial and insurance defense litigation. Mr. Wright has litigated cases involving catastrophic personal injury, complex products liability, fire loss, open range cases, wrongful death, maritime actions, bus accidents, sports-related litigation, toxic torts, and asbestos litigation. He has represented The Arizona School Risk Retention Trust, Arizona Board of Regents, Arizona State University, the Oakland A's, City of Phoenix, Scottsdale Unified School District, Farm Bureau Insurance Companies, Gilbert Unified School District, CNA Insurance Companies, and Liberty Mutual in arbitration, mediation, and trial. Mr. Wright graduated summa cum laude from New Mexico State University, where he was selected the Outstanding Senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. As a captain of the New Mexico State football team he earned all-conference selection as the Male Scholar Athlete of the Year. Mr. Wright graduated from Arizona State University College of Law, where he was chosen Outstanding Trial Advocate and a national member of the Order of Barristers. Mr. Wright has taught post-graduate level courses on school law as an adjunct professor for the Northern Arizona University, and has served an adjunct professor for the trial clinic at the Arizona State University College of Law.

Peter MacDonald came to FOR during the summer of 2001 as a volunteer placement with the Work Adjustment and Employment Support Services(WAESS) program of CAMH. This was his return to the world of work after an eight year battle with bipolar disorder. His main duties in the FOR office are to keep the office running smoothly and to help keep Karyn organized. When Karyn is out of the office or unable to answer the phone, he is the one who takes your call for her. One of his first tasks when he started at FOR was to clean up the mailing lists Karyn used and which were kept in several Microsoft Word files and a Wordperfect file. To organize the mailing lists he created a Microsoft Access database which is still in use and makes production of mailing labels for mail outs much easier. After being shut out of FOR during the SARS crisis in 2003, Peter returned to FOR as the webmaster and program assistant. During the summer of 2004, after reading several books on the subject of Cascading Style Sheets, he redesigned the FOR website to look the way it does now. The new navigation system for the site featuring the pop out menus on the left were based on an example in the book More Eric Meyer on CSS by Eric A. Meyer. Peter lists as one of his accomplishments during the rewrite of the website was converting the code used to be valid XHTML 1.0 code and getting it validate with the standards set out by the www.w3c.org, the international body which sets the standards the world wide web works by. His other big change to the website was removing all but a small java script file from the website and implementing all the menus you see with cascading style sheets. During the summer and fall of 2006 he converted the site to user server side includes and brought the XHTML code up to the latest standard, XHTML 1.1. He says that one of the nice things about working at FOR is Karyn's enthusiasm for the work she does. She is so excited about the work she does and that FOR does, it is contagious and rubs off on to everyone at FOR. After being shut out of FOR during the SARS crisis in 2003, Peter returned to FOR as the webmaster and program assistant. During the summer of 2004, after reading several books on the subject of Cascading Style Sheets, he redesigned the FOR website to look the way it does now. The new navigation system for the site featuring the pop out menus on the left were based on an example in the book More Eric Meyer on CSS by Eric A. Meyer. Peter lists as one of his accomplishments during the rewrite of the website was converting the code used to be valid XHTML 1.0 code and getting it validate with the standards set out by the w3c.org, the international body which sets the standards the world wide web works by. His other big change to the website was removing all but a small java script file from the website and implementing all the menus you see with cascading style sheets. During the summer and fall of 2006 he converted the site to use server side includes and brought the XHTML code up to the latest standard, XHTML 1.1. He says that one of the nice things about working at FOR is Karyn's enthusiasm for the work she does. She is so excited about the work she does and that FOR does, it is contagious and rubs off on to everyone at FOR. Peter has also been a member of several mental health related boards of directors. He was a member of the board at Community Resources Connections of Toronto, the Mental Health Case Management Association of Ontario and PSR Ontario(formerly IAPSRS Ontario). During the summer, Peter also works a day a week as a volunteer bike mechanic at Sandy's Bikes and Books at 115 Laird Drive in Toronto. When not keeping things under control at FOR, Peter can be found out cycling in the summer or out snowshoeing in the winter. When he has enough time, he wants to develop his own website, www.petermacdonald.ca, where he hopes to showcase his abilities as a web designer and show what can be done with simple XHTML code and...

My name is Rob O'Leary and teaching has always been a part of my life. My father worked at a university for many years. After I graduated from college I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine for two years. I was an English teacher and I created after school programs for the students of Donetsk. Before coming to the High School for Violin and Dance I lived in Boston where I was a two time Presidential Volunteer Service award winner. I am a New York City teaching fellow and an English teacher here at HSVD.

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Margaret Jennings, also known as "M.J.", is the lead editor for Books just Books.com. With over 28 years of experience in copyediting, she has worked for a variety of publishers including such names as John Wiley & Sons, McGraw-Hill, and many others. To reach the editorial department at Books just Books.com, please email MJ@selfpublishing.com MJ@selfpublishing.com .

Maureen Mackey is Features Editor, Books, at Reader's Digest magazine, where she's worked for the past 8 years on some of the finest nonfiction being published today. She has nearly 25 years of experience scouting, selecting and excerpting books and has worked closely with some of the top authors in the business, including Rick Bragg, Tom Brokaw, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Mary Roach, Walter Isaacson, Mary Higgins Clark, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Stephen Covey. Maureen's writing has appeared in Reader's Digest, The New York Times and Publishers Weekly, and she's a graduate of the Stanford Professional Publishing Course. In her Book Fare blog, she brings an inside look at books.

Mike Knepler is editor of The Compass, the community news section of The Virginian-Pilot for Norfolkk readers. Mike has been with The Virginian-Pilot since February 1979. He is the Norfolk and Portsmouth community editor. In that role, he assigns and edits stories for The Norfolk Compass, which is published each Thursday, and The Portsmouth Currents, which comes out on Sundays. Previously, Mike covered a variety of news beats in Norfolk and Portsmouth and wrote a weekly column, Neighborhood Exchange, for eight years. He's a 1972 graduate of The American University in Washington, D.C., from which he also received a master's in public affairs reporting in 1978. He and his wife live in Norfolk.

Reamy Jansen is Professor of English and Humanities at Rockland Community College SUNY. He is a past Vice President of the National Book Critics Circle. For fifteen years, he has been a Contributing Editor to The Bloomsbury Review of Books and is co-editor of its new, short prose section, The Out of Bounds Essay. His poetry and personal essays have been published in a variety of literary magazines and he has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize. He can be reached through the Poets & Writers Directory.

Suzanne Corson is the Executive Editor at Books To Watch Out For, a LGBT and feminist book review e-newsletter. Previously she was Executive Editor at HAF Publishing (publisher of On Our Backs and Girlfriends magazines) and Editor of EastBayVoice.org. She also spent twelve years as the proprietrix of Boadecia's Books, a feminist/queer bookstore near Berkeley, California. Suzanne has a BA in Women's Studies and Ethnic Studies from Mills College. In addition to the aforementioned publications and websites, her writing has appeared in Feminist Bookstore News, Sojourner, on AfterEllen.com, and in the fiction anthology Uniform Sex: Erotic Stories of Women in Service.

Zenebeworke Tadesse is the Managing Editor of the Africa Review of Books. She was the immediate past President of the Council for the Development of Social Sciences in Africa (CODESRIA) and serves on the board of the African Gender Institute of the University of Cape Town. She also serves on the Steering Committee of Gender and Trade in Africa (GERA), and as a member of the Global Advisory Committee, Research Programme Consortium on Women's Empowerment.

Angela Alexander is the Corporate Director of Marketing & Public Relations at Sumner Regional Health Systems, Inc. SRHS is a Partner to Vena Stuart Elementary School in Gallatin and is a founding Investor, and currently one of the highest Investors, in COMPASS. Angela graduated from Hendersonville High School in 1987 and Middle TN State University with a BS in Pubic Relations in 1991. Angela's husband, Dewayne, also graduated from Hendersonville High School before attending Tennessee Tech University . He is the head football coach at Cumberland University . They reside in Gallatin with their four children and are members of First Baptist Church Gallatin. In the 1990's, Angela earned her 'Competent Toastmaster' designation and served as a volunteer, board member and president of Sumner County CASA. Angela was also an active member of the Hendersonville Chamber of Commerce and was named the Volunteer of the Year in 1997. That same year Angela received the designation of "Young Careerist" by the Gallatin Business and Professional Women's organization. Alexander is an active member of the Tennessee Society for Healthcare Marketing & PR. She served as president of the organization in 1998. In addition to serving on the COMPASS Board, Angela serves on the Sumner County March of Dimes board and been an active fundraiser for the organization's annual event, WalkAmerica, for the past three years. Pictured at the COMPASS Art & Jazz Soiree are (L to R): Angela, Vena Stuart PTO President Ayesha Sircy, TN Commissioner of Education Lana Seivers, and Vena Stuart art teacher Lori Davis. Commissioner Seivers was the Keynote Speaker at the event and Ms. Sircy and Ms. Davis gave a presentation on the model Partnership between VSE and SRHS. Pictured at the COMPASS Art & Jazz Soiree are (L to R): Angela, Vena Stuart PTO President Ayesha Sircy, TN Commissioner of Education Lana Seivers, and Vena Stuart art teacher Lori Davis. Commissioner Seivers was the Keynote Speaker at the event and Ms. Sircy and Ms. Davis gave a presentation on the model Partnership between VSE and SRHS.

Above all, Ann is committed to consulting members and reporting back to them, and always welcomes comments and opinions on what the Labour Party is doing well, and where it could do better. Her reports of National Policy Forum and NEC meetings are available on this site, and are sent by e-mail directly to any member who requests them. Ann is also an active trade unionist, joining ASTMS 1979-82, NALGO from 1982, and UNISON from 1993. She is a former steward, branch Chair and branch secretary, and currently service conditions secretary for the Oxford Brookes University branch. She is vice-chair of UNISON's South-East Regional Political Committee, and was elected to UNISON's National Political Committee in 1998, 2000 and 2002. Ann works as a computer programmer at Oxford Brookes University, where she is a staff Governor. She is a member of Save the Labour Party, the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. She belongs to the Ramblers' Association, and enjoys walking holidays whenever there is time between meetings.

In December 2006, Vikki N. Spruill began serving as president and CEO of The Ocean Conservancy, the nation's largest ocean conservation organization. Prior to her appointment at The Ocean Conservancy, she was president and founder of SeaWeb, a non-profit organization that uses strategic communications techniques to advance ocean conservation. Spruill led a team there that in eleven years designed and executed countless important and innovative programs to promote ocean conservation and improve ocean governance. Prior to SeaWeb, Spruill spent 15 years in public relations, including five years as a senior vice president at Ruder Finn, one of the largest independently held public relations firms in the world, where she was responsible for client management and new business development. Spruill is a member of the board of directors for Sky Truth and sits on the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program Advisory Board. She is currently a director of COMPASS, the Communications Partnership for Science and the Sea and serves on the Advisory Committee for the Ocean Hall of the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum and the Conservation Committee of the SeaChange Investment Fund. She is also a newly appointed member of the Pew Fellows Advisory Committee. Most recently, Spruill founded FoundationWorks, a nonprofit organization working with foundations to enhance effectiveness for foundations and grantees.