• Bill Frakes is a Sports Illustrated Staff Photographer based in Florida. He has worked in more than 100 countries for a wide variety of editorial and advertising clients.

  His advertising clients include Nike, CocaCola, Champion, Isleworth, Stryker, IBM, Nikon, Kodak, and Reebok. Editorially his work has appeared in virtually every major general interest publication in the world.

  Bill won the coveted Newspaper Photographer of the Year award in the prestigious Pictures of the Year competition. He was a member of the Miami Herald staff that won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of Hurricane Andrew. He has also been honored by the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for reporting on the disadvantaged and by the Overseas Press club for distinguished foreign reporting. He was awarded the Gold Medal by World Press Photo. He has received hundreds of national and international awards for his work.

• Damon Kiesow is the managing editor/online at The Telegraph in Nashua, N.H., where he works with a small newsroom to pursue a digital-first local news strategy. He blogs about mobile content and tools at Poynter Online’s Mobile Media blog and in 2009 was a Poynter-McCormick Change Leadership Fellow. He has presented on multimedia newsroom management, change leadership and mobile content strategies at numerous venues for the NPPA, the Poynter Institute, The American Press Institute and others. Kiesow is currently a 2010 Fellow in the Knight Digital Media Center (KDMC) Leadership Institute.

• Darren Durlach realized in the 3rd grade that his dreams of becoming an astronaut were unlikely when his teacher told him that math was involved. After a brief denial period he set his sights on the right side of his brain and after graduating from Radford University he started as a Production Assistant at NBC 29 in Charlottesville, VA and soon convinced the Chief Photographer to let him shoot. After attending a career changing NPPA workshop in Norman Oklahoma Darren got a job as a Photojournalist at Fox 45 in Baltimore where he still works and is honored to work with the best news people in the country. Darren’s greatest career achievement was winning back to back NPPA Ernie Crisp Photographer of the Year Awards for 2009 and 2010. The best part of winning is getting the chance to hear from amazing speakers and enthusiastic storytellers at conventions around the country. Darren has been honored with 11 Emmys and numerous NPPA and AP awards. He was also named the 2008 and 2009 b-roller of the Year. He credits any success he may have to great parents, his awesome wife Kathryn and his mutt Maggie (even though she eats his shoes).

• Garrett Hubbard is a staff Visual Journalist at USA TODAY and he is pretty sure he has the best job in the world. Most of his stories have both video and still photographic components for the print and online editions of the paper. Hubbard believes that stories revealing truth can change lives. He is a visual storyteller because he wants to encourage, challenge, and motivate his viewers into action. Before being invited to the team at USA TODAY in 2008 Hubbard freelanced video and still stories in Washington, D.C. He cut his teeth as a staff video and photojournalist at The Naples Daily News and graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in 2004, and the University of California Santa Barbara in 2002.

• Greg Smith of Bluffton, SC, serves on the NPPA national board and advocacy committee. He has been an NPPA member for 30 years, while making pictures, editing and writing for newspaper, magazine, corporate, publishing, portrait and fine art clients. As business practices chairman, he helped craft NPPA’s Independent Photographers Toolkit, Best Practices for the Business of Independent Photojournalism and the Cost of Doing Business Calculator. Greg is also former S.C. vice president for the American Society of Media photographers, former membership director of the Stock Artists Alliance, and has worked on several photographic standards efforts. His multimedia documentary, “Keeping the May River Wild,” has screened at a couple film festivals, earned a couple honors and secured his MA in Visual Communication from Ohio University in June 2009. He received his BSJ from Ohio in 1980. Greg and his editor wife, Janet, have three mostly grown children, reared on the tidal May River. Learn more at his website, www.imediasmith.com.

• James Biddle teaches postproduction, audio design, and basic production for the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at The University of Georgia. A professional editor for 20 years, he is a certified trainer of Avid Media Composer, Final Cut Pro, and Color, and is a Master Pro for Final Cut Studio. Biddle also works as a freelance editor and consultant for tapeless workflows on cameras such as the Panasonic P2, The Sony EX1, The Red One, and the Canon 5D. Biddle started an Avid Training Center at Grady college in 2007, and an Apple Authorized Training Center at Grady College in 2009.

• Joie Chen , after 25 years in legacy journalism, made a huge career shift-- but was able to take her old skills with her. For many years she worked as a correspondent and anchor for CNN and CBS-- her work appeared on shows like the CBS Evening News and CBS Sunday Morning. Now she's a top executive in online media. Her company builds online video channels and niche newsrooms-- newsrooms which employ journalists hired from traditional news media outlets to produce sponsored or "branded" news content. She'll be happy to explain what that means!

• Meghan Lyden is a Multimedia Photo Editor at The Denver Post in Denver, Colorado, where she is responsible for the development and creation of multimedia projects on The Denver Post website. Before joining the Post, Meghan was a photo editing intern at the Newseum in Washington, DC and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The multimedia projects she produced have been awarded Best Documentary in NPPA's 2008 Best of Photojournalism, the 2009 Editor & Publisher's Photos of the Year Grand Prize, the 2009 National Headliner Awards, and two awards for Outstanding Website in the 2010 Photos of the Year Awards for Photo District News. She also produced the online presentation of Craig Walker's 2010 Pulitzer Prize winning photo project, American Soldier. Meghan is a 2000 graduate of Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island and is a candidate for a Masters in Journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. While studying at MU, she was co-cordinator of College Photographer of the Year and Pictures of the Year International.

• Mickey H. Osterreicher, Esq is general counsel to the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). He is a member of the New York State Bar Association Media Law Committee and the American Bar Association Communications Law Forum. He has been a photojournalist for over thirty-five years, working first for the Buffalo Courier-Express as a still photographer and then at WKBW-TV, the ABC affiliate in Buffalo, NY, shooting, editing and producing video. His work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Time, Newsweek and USA Today as well as on ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News and ESPN.

• Sarah Bates is a graduate of Ohio University. She worked in Medina, Ohio out of college as a staff photographer then moved onto Anderson, S.C. as a staff photographer for the Anderson Independent-Mail for 5 years. From there she moved to The Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston, S.C. as the photo editor from 2005-2008 and in March of 2008 she became the Multimedia Editor for postandcourier.com

• Scott Mc Kiernan is a media industry leader. Mc Kiernan’s dynamic leadership of the ZUMA Press family of companies, as well as decades of wide-ranging experience in photojournalism have proven to be instrumental in establishing one of the largest editorial photo agencies in the world and the first digital age picture agency: ZUMA Wire. Mc Kiernan as a Web pioneer in ‘92, launched the net's first database for editorial pictures. Today his agency is the agent to some of the world's most respected photojournalists (3,000+), newspapers (100+), agencies (66+) and wire services (9) and always evolving. Running a global staff of 50. With one of the largest editorial Between Mc Kiernan’s design work, photography as well as picture editing and his rooster of stellar photojournalists photography, they have won numerous major awards for picture editing and photography, including Pictures of The Year (POYi), Best of Photojournalism (NPPA’s BOP), Communications Arts, World Press Awards as well as a few Pulitzers. Mc Kiernan’s ultimate pride and joy is his newborn son: Sean Emerson. Who with his lovely wife Kelly and side kick black lab: Kona, enjoy the waves of Southern California. Mc Kiernan remains an active shooter today, living for finding and making that one image that can make a true difference.

  For more on Scott and ZUMA go to ZUMApress.com, zReportage.com, zMultimedia.com or DOUBLEtruck Magazine. Or check out his most recent ventures: ThePicturesofTheDay.com and the birth of the first pure Photojournalism Only Gallery: TheKONAGallery.com.

• Sean D. Elliot is in his second term as NPPA Vice President, having served on the board of directors for over ten years starting as Associate Director and Director in Region One and serving two terms as Secretary. Sean currently chairs the NPPA Governance Committee and serves on the Ethics Committee. Sean was on the task force that re-wrote the NPPA's code of Ethics in 2004 as well as on the committee that wrote the NPPA's new governance structure last year. He is Chief Photographer at The Day in New London, Conn., and lives in Norwich, Conn., with his wife and two children.

• Seth Siditsky is the Assistant Managing Editor for Visuals at The Star-Ledger in Newark, NJ, the state’s largest newspaper. He helped create the video department at the paper and worked to integrate video into the entire newsroom over the past few years. The department has won numerous awards including three Emmy awards in the NY Emmy’s this year. Siditsky has a master’s degree in photojournalism from Syracuse University and has taught at various workshops including NSC and workshops at Syracuse University, the University of Georgia, and Southern Illinois University.

• Shawn Montano is a 3 time NPPA Video Editor of the Year. Shawn has two work passions in his life, video editing and teaching. Shawn says, "I'm very lucky, I get to spend time doing either one while getting paid to do it." Shawn works at KWGN/KDVR in Denver as a Video Editor. He also is an Adjunct Professor at Front Range Community College in Longmont CO. Shawn also teaches via his Edit Foundry Blog,Editfoundry.com and Edit Foundry on Facebook.

• Stacy L. Pearsall got her start as an Air Force photographer at the age of 17. During her time in the service, she traveled to over 41 countries, and attended S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. During three tours in Iraq, she earned the Bronze Star Medal and Commendation with Valor for heroic actions under fire. Pearsall was one of only two women to win NPPA’s Military Photographer of the Year competition, and the only woman to have earned it twice. Now retired from the military, Pearsall works worldwide as a freelance photographer, and is the owner and Director of the Charleston Center for Photography.

• Stanley Leary is a freelance photographer based Atlanta, GA. His international assignments have taken him to Burkina -Faso, France, Ghana, Haiti, Mexico and Ontario. His work has appeared in magazines around the world. Currently he is shooting recruitment materials for colleges, serving as Visual Consultant for Chick-fil-A, doing corporate photography and covering assignments for Black Star. Prior to freelancing Stanley worked as a staff photojournalist at newspaper and magazines. He spent nine years as a staff photographer for Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Stanley is a past co-president and webmaster of the Atlanta chapter of ASMP. He is a member of ASMP, NPPA, the Atlanta Press Club, and Sports Shooter. He is the founder of the Atlanta Chapter of Christians in Photojournalism.

• Todd Baer is a freelance International Correspondent and Producer for Al Jazeera English. He joined Al Jazeera in July of 2008 in Delhi, India. Since then he has covered news all over India - including violent protests in Kashmir and the Mumbai attacks.

  After working in India, Baer was based at Al Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. While there he covered the aftermath of the War in Gaza, Afghanistan and the Lebanese Parliamentary election.

  He most recently covered the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti and reported from Morocco. Prior to joining Al Jazeera Baer was local television reporter at KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, MN. He is a cross trained electronic journalist who can shoot, edit video and write stories for television and the internet.

• Warren Peper is one of the best-known and most trusted faces in the Lowcountry. He is a graduate of North Charleston High School and Charleston Southern University. During his 35 years as a local TV news and sports anchor, he received many awards, including a Peabody award for his coverage of Hurricane Hugo, an Emmy for Broadcast Excellence - Local News, and Sportscaster of the Year for South Carolina multiple times. His sports coverage has included the Super Bowl, the Final Four and the Masters, as well as play--by-play for both Southern Conference basketball and S.E.C. football. Following Hurricane Katrina, Peper reported from Mississippi on ravaged communities who felt ignored by the attention focused on New Orleans. From Washington, DC, Peper covered the memorial of Rosa Parks as her body lie in state in the Rotunda. He also has interviewed such well-known people as Muhammad Ali and former President George Bush. He covered five presidential debates in 2008. His broadcasting career continues on postandcourier.com through his Man on the Street interviews and through his work withLowcountrymarketplace.com.

Check out the schedule for more information about times and topics.

There will also be networking opportunities, a shootout contest with prizes, portfolio reviews, an exhibit hall and the opportunity to attend the NPPA’s Annual Awards Reception. Please note that this year’s awards program will not be a sit down banquet but a cocktail reception with Hors d'œuvres and drinks.

Online registration closed. On-site registration will be available at the door.

A discounted hotel rate has been secured at the Francis Marion Hotel for attendees to Convergence 10. Please mention you are with the NPPA when you book your room.

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