Charley Long serves as Vice President of Fleet Operations and Trading for Southern Company, a super-regional energy company in the southeast and a leading U.S. producer of electricity. Mr. Long is responsible for ensuring a reliable and economic supply of electric generation on a real time basis for more than four million customers while increasing net income from wholesale electricity trading activities.

Professor Owens serves on the faculty at Vanderbilt University's Graduate School of Management in the area of organizational behavior. Specializing in strategic innovation in business, Owens delivers executive education programs and consulting services to a wide range of clients in the U.S. and Europe. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, London Guardian and San Jose Mercury News, as well as on NPR's Marketplace.

Kay Tipton has served as math department chair of Vestavia Hills High School, a public high school in Birmingham, Alabama, since 1989. Mrs. Tipton is a three-time winner of the White House Commission of Presidential Scholars Distinguished Teacher Award, as well as recipient of both the Golden Apple Teacher of the Year Award and Cornell University's Outstanding High School Educator Award.