Sarah Leonard is the President & CEO of the Alaska Travel Industry Association – the state’s leading membership trade association for the travel industry in Alaska. Sarah has an extensive educational and professional background in tourism management with a Master’s of Science (MS) degree in recreation management and tourism from Arizona State University. She earned her Bachelor of Art’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Journalism with a special emphasis in public relations.

Sarah joined ATIA after serving in senior philanthropy positions for early education and conservation nonprofits in Alaska. She has been involved in promoting Alaska’s wildlife, cultural and natural resources for over a decade through her time as the Statewide Watchable Wildlife Coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and as the Executive Director of the Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association (AWRTA). Ms. Leonard also was one of the founding leaders in Adventure Green Alaska, an Alaska-based certificate program designed to highlight environmentally friendly tourism practices in response to increased consumer demand.

Sarah Leonard

Ghostwriting’s not confined to celebrity memoirs. Executives, politicians, and thought leaders in every industry use ghostwriters to help them communicate better. From a memo about the company picnic to a speech for the Rotary Club to an industry white paper, the products of ghostwriters and their clients get results – motivated employees, business connections, brand awareness, positive public opinion, even votes.

In this fast-paced session, you’ll learn specific techniques to capture your subject’s voice, organize their thoughts, and get the results they want. Whether you’re ghostwriting in a corporate setting, or freelancing as a ghostwriter, you’ll get valuable tips on building trust with your clients, digging down to uncover their real goals and concerns, and working with busy, impatient leaders. You’ll also learn about the ethics of ghostwriting through real-life case studies and examples.

Having your name on the byline isn’t necessary to have a rewarding career as a writer. Ghostwriting has unique rewards – you still see your writing in print (or hear it spoken aloud), but when you develop a close relationship with your client, you can influence the content of the piece and even, over time, that person’s thinking.

Blythe Campbell has been ghostwriting for CEOs and other senior leaders over a 30-year career in communications and marketing. She’s written memos, opinion pieces, letters to the editor, legislative testimony, white papers, speeches and more – both as a freelancer and in a corporate setting. She has worked in the engineering, telecommunications, energy and finance industries, and is currently working for NANA Development Corporation, a $1.5 billion subsidiary of one of Alaska’s 13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations. Blythe founded Northrim Bank’s Alaskanomics blog (www.Alaskanomics.com) and is now a guest author.

Follow Blythe’s professional Twitter account @BlytheCampbell. In her personal life, Blythe pursues a number of Martha Stewart-esque activities, including cooking, gardening and sewing, tweeting from @blytheak.

Blythe Campbell

During a sales and marketing career in high tech, Chris’ interest in religion was rekindled by a recommendation from a friend of his sister to investigate liberation theology. She further suggested he might benefit from participating in annual joint conventions of the American Academy of Religion and Society for Biblical Literature. This exposed him to every flavor of religious dialog, and detail as minute as the Thomasine and Johannine study groups, explorations of the Gnostic Gospels, exposure to the historical Jesus movement, and Christian care for the earth groups.

He discovered meaningful church and religion was difficult to find as he and his partner struggled to agree on choices. However, he continued to search and began blogging about his numerous church visits on an Anchorage Daily News blog created in 2008. The blog grew to a Saturday religion column in 2014, and has continued under Alaska Dispatch News owners.

Chris occasionally does mystery church visitor consulting engagements to assist churches with identifying weaknesses in the way they represent themselves to the public by their greeting, hospitality, music, and preaching. Very few Christian writers explore this genre across the U.S.

Chris Thompson

In 1989 Mark Romick started working for Alaska State Housing Authority (ASHA) which merged with Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) in 1992. In his 26 years with the corporation, Mark held several positions in the Planning Department before becoming the Director in 2006. He is responsible for directing the corporation’s planning functions, housing policy development and coordination, grant management and development and management of  housing grant programs. Mark oversees the administration of federal and corporate programs as well as the State of Alaska Council on the Homeless.

Mark holds a Bachelor in Economics from the University of the Pacific and a Master of Economics from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

He takes advantage of Alaska’s seasons with his family by fishing and biking in the summer and snowboarding in the winter.

Dennis McMillian

Dennis McMillian, now a consultant to the Foraker Group, is Foraker’s founding President and CEO. He served as a development officer, and then as CEO with United Ways around the country and came to Alaska in 1992 to lead the United Way of Anchorage. Since then he has worked to build the state’s philanthropic culture including helping to develop the Alaska Community Foundation. During his career, he’s trained thousands of professionals and volunteers, consulted and spoken at numerous conferences including the Council on Foundations, Philanthropy Northwest, and Independent Sector. Dennis is the author of Focus on Sustainability: A Nonprofit’s Journey.

A Feb. 8, 2015, Alaska Dispatch News story had this to say about McMillian:

“When McMillian moved from Louisiana to Alaska in 1992 with his wife and two children, he arrived to run the United Way of Anchorage. His family thought they would stay six to eight years, he said. But then The Foraker Group formed…

… McMillian plans to stay in Alaska with his wife and continue to do some consulting both in Alaska and nationally. Eventually, he will retire and become a volunteer. He hopes to read more, travel more and maybe just take a break and sit on the couch.”

Shirley Holloway is best known for establishing the Quality Schools Initiative, calling for high expectations for all students in Alaska and proving that all students, no matter their social, economic or ethnic background, can be academically successful. Holloway has been recognized as a woman breaking the glass ceiling to become one of the first female superintendents (North Slope Borough School District), the first female National finalist for Superintendent of the Year, and the first female Commissioner of Education in Alaska.

Shirley holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Gonzaga University, has published and presented numerous papers, and served on many boards and commissions. In 2005, she founded the Avant-Garde Learning Foundation, a non-profit foundation that helps communities, families and schools prepare young people for bright, successful futures. She has actively reached out to girls and women to help them, through mentoring and support, to achieve their desired goals. Today, many educational leaders in Alaska and Outside attribute their success to her inspiration and effective influence. Her guiding philosophy is Children Come First.

Currently, she is president of NAMI Alaska (National Alliance on Mental Illness).

Shirley Holloway