Doak, Myles: - Myles Doak started his first business while still in high school, partnering with his uncle, and experienced an idea turn into a product. They sold tens of thousands of units, and Myles learned a lot. He started his second business in college, sold three thousand units in between semesters, partnered with some fantastic people, received investment, manufactured an incredible product and built that business for six years, selling hundreds of thousands of units. His third business brought lessons in both success and failure, due to manufacturing problems and the pandemic.In 2020, Myles started a consulting company to help small local businesses leverage the internet, working with 100+ clients over 18 months. After a reset period in 2021, in 2022, Myles and two partners created Neighbour Media, a modern local media company highlighting the positive, uplifting and heartwarming stories of the neighbors who live, work and play locally in Newmarket and Aurora, Ontario, Canada.In 2023, with another partner, Myles launched The Big Ball Golf Company, producing and selling an oversized golf ball created to help golfers improve their putting.
Hazo, Samuel John: - Samuel John Hazo has published more than 50 books, including poetry collections, fiction, drama, essays and translated works. He is the founder of the International Poetry Forum. He taught at Duquesne University, where I had the good fortune to take his American Poetry class.
Hicks, Susan Lannan: - Susan Lannan Hicks lives in Western North Carolina with her husband, Tom Hicks. Both enjoy living in the mountains near their daughter, Kerra, playing music with friends, and the company of Oliver, an orphaned cat. Attending college in the late 1960s, Susan Hicks encountered a variety of issues that continue to divide our country. While earning a degree in education, she learned about social, racial and environmental injustice, and her activism was aroused. Family members and dear friends were being drafted into military service, and battles in Vietnam were on the nightly news. Enrolling with the intent to become a teacher, she discovered that by the time she graduated, in a country that had been crying for teachers, opportunities in education had become virtually impossible to obtain. She found work in nonprofit organizations, both paid and volunteer. From overnight shifts in a drug-and-alcohol drop-in and call-in center to serving as a family planning educator and clinic manager, her work exposed her to a wide variety of people and life situations. During her time in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she experienced both the pain of a personal assault and the grief of being kept away from any contact with a teen who had finally started to reveal that she was being sexually abused. Susan continued to work on social and environmental safety issues, living in Pennsylvania, in southeast Oklahoma, on the Gulf Coast of Florida and now in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She has helped with preservation of a historic site in Kansas City, Kansas, and a 100-year-old clubhouse in Sarasota, Florida. She taught in public schools and in a one-room education program serving adjudicated juvenile delinquents. She provided services in domestic violence education and managed a child advocacy program. Since establishing Precise Communications in 2002, Susan has offered public relations and writing services to businesses, authors and academics. Plants, poetry, music, stretching, fresh air, and time to think and to enjoy the company of good books, friends and family members bring her joy.
