Keynotes

Cleve Jones, Founder of The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt & Organizer of October's Meet on the Mall

Cleve's career as an activist began in San Francisco during the turbulent 1970s when he was befriended by pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Following Milk's election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Cleve worked as a student intern in Milk's office while studying political science at San Francisco State University. Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated on November 27, 1978, and Cleve dropped out of school to work in Sacramento as a legislative consultant to California State Assembly Speakers Leo T. McCarthy and Willie L. Brown, Jr.

In 1982, Cleve returned to San Francisco to work in the district office of State Assemblyman Art Agnos. He was elected to three terms on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee and served on local and state commissions for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and the Mission Mental Health Community Advisory Board. One of the first to recognize the threat of AIDS, Cleve co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983.

Cleve conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at a candlelight memorial for Harvey Milk in 1985 and created the first quilt panel in honor of his close friend Marvin Feldman in 1987. Since then, the AIDS Memorial Quilt has grown to become the world's largest community arts project, memorializing the lives of over 80,000 Americans killed by AIDS. Independent affiliates of the NAMES Project are currently operating in 50 countries around the world.

A dynamic and inspiring public speaker, Cleve travels extensively throughout the United States and around the world, lecturing at colleges and universities. He has met with heads of state, including Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton and former South African President Nelson Mandela. He has received numerous awards from AIDS and gay rights organizations, religious conferences, state and national health associations and the legislatures of California, Indiana, and Massachusetts.

His work has been featured on 60 Minutes, Oprah, Good Morning America, National Public Radio, and many other television and radio programs.

Cleve's latest endeavor is this October's Meet on the Mall for Equality, a National Equality March for Gay Rights. The event is scheduled to take place on October 11th, one week before Cleve's address at the 2009 Reaching Out MBA Conference.

LZ Granderson, ESPN Columnist & 2009 GLAAD Award Winner

LZ Granderson is a senior writer and columnist for the ESPN Magazine and ESPN.com, as well as a regular contributor for ESPN's Sports Center, Outside the Lines and First Take. Prior to joining ESPN first as a magazine editor and later as a writer, Mr. Granderson was a sports columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Mr. Granderson was a Columbia University Hechinger Institute Fellow, a 2009 GLAAD Award winner for online journalism and won first place in the opinion writing category for the 2008 Excellence in Journalism awards given by the National Lesbian Gay Journalist Association. Mr. Granderson broke the Sheryl Swoopes' coming out story, has interviewed many sports greats including Terrell Owens, Dan Marino, Roger Federer, and David Beckham. He recently ignited an intense national community debate with his op ed piece, "Gay is not the new black" on CNN.com. HRC has identified him as one of the most distinct voices in the LGBT movement, and featured him in a national online conversation about race, sexuality and gender. Challenging journalists, in a recent ESPN piece he demonstrated that Hawaii coach McMackin's slur reveals a larger problem within sports media itself. Mr. Granderson knows deeply the demands of being out from the initial interview, to making his corporate mark at a media giant on the front edge of change, but dominated by a jock culture and hyper masculinity. In his commentary Mr. Granderson has tackled taboo subjects such as usage of the N-word in the black community, the presence of gays in the locker room, and the truths and lies about reverse racism. Blistering honest and insightful, Mr. Granderson spares no one. Not even himself.

Carleen Haas, Vice President, Talent Strategies, Humana

Carleen Haas is Vice President - Talent Strategies for Humana Inc., a Fortune 85 health solutions company. As a member of the company's operating committee, Carleen works to drive the execution of the business strategy through cultivation of an enterprise-wide talent mindset. Her leadership of workforce planning, talent acquisition, diversity, onboarding and human capital analytics ensures that the company is uniquely positioned to acquire the right talent at the right time.

Prior to this role, Carleen led Humana's HR Business Consultancy group interfacing with business leadership on the strategy and execution of all human capital practices. Before joining Humana in 2000, Carleen served in a variety of leadership roles with US Airways, Inc. and in government service to educate and develop service personnel. She currently serves on the board of Project Women whose mission is to assist homeless single mothers obtain a college education. Carleen holds a Bachelor of Science from Bucknell University and an MBA from Sullivan University.

William Arruda, Brand Strategist & Entrepreneur

A citizen of the world with boundless energy and a genuine passion for human potential, William Arruda is the founder and President of Reach, the global leader in personal branding. One of the most sought-after speakers on personal branding, social media and employee motivation, he has delivered hundreds of keynotes to audiences of five to five thousand throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. William is an accomplished entrepreneur, author and executive coach, but first and foremost, he's a public speaker.

His client list reads like the pages of Fortune Magazine. Adobe, British Telecom, IBM, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley and Starwood Hotels are just a few in a long list of clients.

As a thought-leader, William is a spokesperson on personal branding, online identity and career management. He has appeared on BBC TV, the Discovery Channel, Fox News Live and Radio America and he's been featured in countless publications, including Forbes, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur. William's book, with coauthor Kirsten Dixson, Career Distinction, is a careers bestseller. He is a member of the International Coach Federation and the National Speakers Association. He holds a Master's Degree in Education.

William exudes optimism and a genuine belief in the power of the individual to achieve great things. He not only sees the glass as half full, he sees the potential for it to be overflowing.

Julie Goldman, Comedian

Julie is currently a cast member of LOGO's Big Gay Sketch Show and winner of the 2008 NewNowNext Brink of Fame Comic Award and the 2007 MAC Award for Best Headlining Comedian in NYC. Julie glides effortlessly between lesbian folk singer "Pepper Stein Whalesong" to the beloved Liza Minelli in the now infamous "Super Liza" Series. Julie has been garnering massive attention around the country performing stand up in clubs, and colleges and headlining various shows and working beside Sarah Silverman, Lewis Black, and Jeff Garlin. She has performed at Montreal's prestigious Just for Laughs comedy festival, and on Broadway in Laughing Liberally and emceeing Puppetry of the Penis. She is a favorite on Olivia Cruises and R' Family Vacations and has appeared doing stand up on LOGO, VH-1, and Comedy Central. Currently, Julie is working with Amanda Bearse ("Married With Children") and Brandy Howard ("Automatic") on their new Lesbian Romantic Comedy, Nicest Thing.

Patrick Sammon, Former President, Log Cabin Republicans

Patrick Sammon possesses a wide variety of media and political experience. He served as President of Log Cabin Republicans and the Liberty Education Forum from late 2006 until early 2009. Sammon provided one of the leading conservative voices advocating for gays and lesbians in the Republican Party.

As Log Cabin's President, Sammon led an organization with 20,000 grassroots members across the country. He coordinated Log Cabin's lobbying efforts in Washington, developed and implemented the organization's political strategy, and oversaw media outreach efforts. He appeared on national television news programs including CNN's "Larry King Live," "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer," "Hardball with Chris Matthews," ABC's "Good Morning America," and "ABC World News." He has also been featured in national print media including Time, USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, and The Washington Post.

Before moving to Washington, DC, Sammon was an award winning television news reporter for six years. From 1999 to 2002, he worked at WJHL Newschannel 11, the CBS affiliate in the Tri-Cities (Johnston City and Kingsport, TN & Bristol, TN/VA). In 2002, the Tennessee Associated Press Broadcasters Association gave him an award for Best News Writing in the state. Sammon also spent three years as a television news reporter at WWNY-TV, the CBS affiliate in Watertown, New York. He received awards from the New York Associated Press Broadcasters Association for best feature reporting and the Syracuse Press Club for best investigative reporting.

Before joining Log Cabin and LEF, he worked at Manifold Productions, a documentary production company in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Since leaving Log Cabin Republicans, Sammon has been developing several documentary film projects.

Beth Littrell, Staff Attorney, Lambda Legal

Beth Littrell is a Staff Attorney for the Southern Regional Office of Lambda Legal. Prior to joining Lambda Legal in May 2007, Littrell was the Associate Legal Director of the ACLU of Georgia where she worked on various constitutional law matters and developed and coordinated the sticks & stones project, a public education campaign to reduce anti-gay harassment in schools.

Her work on constitutional cases includes having helped strike down Georgia's fornication law, which made it a crime for unmarried persons to engage in intimate relations (In re J.M.); winning an appeal that forced the state to return a lesbian mother's children (In re S.C. and E.C.); successfully challenging school discipline for an off-campus website (Goldsmith et. al. v. Gwinnett Co. Sch. Dist.); and winning relief for students subject to a racially applied, overly vague "anti-gang" dress code (Tillman v. Gwinnett Co. Sch. Dist.). She was also among the legal team heading up the challenge to Georgia's anti-gay, anti-marriage constitutional amendment (O'Kelley v. Perdue), working as co-counsel with Lambda Legal, and, most recently, she was the lead attorney for the fight to secure the right for students to form a Gay Straight Alliance in White County, Georgia (P.R.I.D.E. v. White Co. School Dist.).

Beth Littrell's current docket of active cases since joining Lambda Legal include Langbehn v. Public Health Trust of Miami-Dade Co., a case against a hospital that denied visitation for 8 hours to a woman whose life partner of 18 years lay dying feet away; Day v. SSA, a challenge to the Social Security Administration's refusal to recognize a parent-child relationship between a gay disabled man in Florida and his legal children for purposes of providing social security benefits to his dependent children; Central Alabama Pride v. Langford, a challenge against the City of Birmingham for the actions of its mayor in denying a gay organization equal access to fly their rainbow flags from city property as part of a designated public forum; Jarrell v. Boseman, a challenge to second-parent adoptions in North Carolina; and Mongerson v. Mongerson, where she filed a friend of the court brief urging the Georgia Supreme Court to strike down an anti-gay visitation restriction placed on a gay father prohibiting him from "exposing" his children to any "homosexual friends or partners."

Littrell received her bachelor's degree in journalism cum laude from Georgia State University in 1998 and her Juris Doctorate degree from Georgia State University's College of Law in 2001. Her work on behalf of l/g/b/t/q people and youth has garnered her recognition and awards from several non-profit organizations, including the Stonewall Bar Association's 2002 Outstanding Service to the Stonewall Community Award and YouthPride's 2006 Service to Youth Award.