Gail D. Johnson, business leader, entrepreneur and mentor, is the owner of Solving Business Problems Creatively, a consulting firm located in Tyler, Texas. She has over three decades of experience in management at Fortune 500/1000 level companies. Her experience encompasses emerging technologies such as: Internet recruiting, document management, and digital rights management. Ms. Johnson also teaches college-level business courses, develops course curriculum, and has served as an adjunct instructor, at two major universities: San Diego State University, San Diego, California and the University of Texas at Tyler. She holds an MBA from the University of Redlands, and a BSBA from Regis University.

She has co-authored two books: !wontuoteg, with Kelley Gerwig, a book that opens your eyes to clues to the personalities that can affect your personal brand and ultimately your career. And, The Brandicapped? Reader Workbook, with Mel Epstein, a how-to personal brand workbook.

Ms. Johnson was selected as a 2010/2011 Professional Woman of the Year by the National Association of Professional Women; was Honored for Excellence in Business Consulting, by Cambridge Who’s Who; and, appointed to the 2009/2010 Cambridge Who’s Who Registry Among Executive and Professional Women. She is also President-Elect of the Tyler Board of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

MEL! Epstein’s expertise is in the areas of creative branding, marketing, advertising, writing, teaching and public speaking. He owns MarketingVISION Brand Communications in Metro Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He’s also a partner in Italy’s I&G Management and Contrade, business consulting, training and development companies. MEL!’s’ been a visiting professor at San Diego State University, Michigan State and The Philadelphia College of the Arts. He’s a mentor at the University of Texas-Tyler, University of California-San Diego and The Art Institutes of California. Recently, he was invited to Europe to introduce his newly created branding concept: “Epstein’s Theory of Branding Relativity™” {Commercial Branding + Professional Branding = Commercial Branding2} to CEOs of companies such as Nestle, British Petroleum, Yves St. Laurent, Bayer, Mattel and Glaxo SmithKline.

MEL! is the author of BRANDICAPPED?, a book that urges CEO’s to know and understand that they are in charge of their company’s brand. In addition, he and co-author Gail Johnson have written The Professionally BRANDICAPPED? Reader Workbook, a how-to Professional Branding guide. His “Ten Seconds of Branding Fame” came when he created the nationally recognized: “It’s Ten O’Clock, Do You Know Where Your Children Are?”

MEL!’s goal is to make certain professionals and students know exactly who they are, what they do/should do and why anyone should care to remember them.

During the course of her 25+-year career, Kelley has built a strong professional brand of taking on responsibility with integrity and creativity establishing herself a someone who gets the job done – on-time, every time. In 2001, Kelley exchanged the corporate career for the full-time life of raising her young family and expanding her farming business. Alongside her husband of more than 20 years, she co-founded DeVine Organic Growers, an ever-expanding organic agricultural enterprise focused on growing avocados, seasonal greens, tomatoes, various citrus and Tropical Dragonfruit for distribution to grocery stores across the USA and famer’s markets in Southern California.

Even after leaving the corporate world, Kelley maintained her interest in marketing, branding, business and career development. She has collaborated on two books discussing career issues: “!wontuoteg” a book focused on the personality types that will affect your career; and “A New Brand You Workbook – For Professional Brand and Career Maintenance” which outlines the steps on how to develop and communicate their own unique value.

Kelley’s own professional experiences include international and domestic business development focused on systems analysis and design, strategic planning, market research, and corporate branding and brand development. Her most recent efforts in professional branding draw on her success in the corporate environment and as a small business owner. Kelley is an alumnus of the University of Redlands - School of Business in 1990 and holds a professional certificate in Systems Analysis and Design from UCSD.