Flora Posteraro
Flora Posteraro has been an Emmy Award Winning TV Anchor/Reporter for the last 34 years at television stations in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Wilkes-Barre, Johnstown, PA and Clarksburg, West Virginia. She has anchored more than 10,000 newscasts during her career, interviewed Presidents and top leaders, stood in hurricanes and blizzards and was the first woman in the world to fly in a MiG 29 but meeting everyday people and telling their stories is what Flora enjoyed the most!
Flora says the best part of her job was the chance to help others, especially children, and non-profits in the community. She is articulate and energetic and was honored to be a mentor for countless interns and younger employees. Flora is devoted to helping non-profits and charities. She has emceed thousands of events over the years. Her top charities are the Highmark Caring Place, Caitlin’s Smiles, Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries, and anything that has to do with helping kids!
Flora has nearly 20,000 followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The audience can easily connect with Flora because of her personality and her sense of humor. She is also down to earth and is able to communicate messages about her profession and her life that others can relate to and understand. She is truly humbled when people say she had an impact on their lives!
Flora’s greatest love is her 19-year-old son, Sean who is now off to college. She is a mother, a daughter, a sister and a great friend. She considers herself just an average person with a big heart who thrives on helping others.
Flora will be an excellent addition to your next event! As an emcee she is professional yet fun. She will spend time learning about your organization so attendees feel she is a part of your team!
Carrie Perry
Carrie Perry is the Co-Host of ‘Chick2Chick’ podcast and former Correspondent and Host for “Good Day PA” ABC 27 in Harrisburg, PA. She has been in the media business for over 25 years. Carrie learned early on in her career how to engage an audience when she ended up hosting Rite Aid’s annual corporate trade show in Baltimore after her boss completely lost her voice! At 22 and standing in front of about 3,000 Ride Aid employees from all over the U.S., she found a complete calm as she gazed out into a sea of smiling faces. The bug bit her. From that point on she enjoyed a myriad of experiences; product specialist on the ‘Home Shopping Network’, Co-Host of ‘AC 24/7’ on Comcast, Host of ‘Cars at Carlisle’ on Speed Channel and emceeing several events including the Central PA Leukemia Lymphoma Society’s Man/Woman of the Year Galas. Carrie simply loves to communicate with people in just about any way.
Carrie’s strengths lie in her ability to reach people, and her greatest strength as been that of an advocate for her daughter while she fought the debilitating symptoms of late stage Lyme Disease and Babesia. During this time, while she was learning all she could about this disease, she produced and hosted 30minute live television programs designed to educate the viewer about Lyme in Pennsylvania. She also hosted her own ‘Tick Talk: A Conversation About Lyme’ at a local club, moderating the nationally recognized physicians she connected with along her Momma Bear journey. Today, Carrie is the Founder and President of Sam’s Spoons Foundation for Lyme Disease Support & Education and continues to host special events for the Foundation.
Eric Perkins
Never truly good enough to play college or professional sports, Eric Perkins decided to talk about them instead. Perk as he’s better known, grew up immersed in sports, but also in television. His father Jack was an NBC Nightly News correspondent for decades before becoming the host of Biography on A&E. Perk combined his two passions and became a sportscaster where he worked in Tupelo, Memphis and Atlanta before finding his way to Minnesota where he currently serves as the sports director for the NBC station (KARE-TV) in the Twin Cities.
Since joining KARE in the late 90’s, Perk has won several Emmy Awards for TV work. He’s covered Super Bowls, Final Fours, All Star Games and even five Olympic Games. But he’s perhaps best known for his Perk at Play segment, in which he’s taken part in everything from Skydiving to Demolition Derby, playing tennis with John McEnroe and being body slammed by Brock Lesnar during the decade long run of the segment.
Perk is very involved with local charities and often can be found serving as an emcee for galas, fundraisers, or awards ceremonies throughout the state. Over the last few years, Perk has emceed events for Gillette Children’s Hospitals, Children’s Cancer Research Fund, Second Harvest Heartland, Spare Key Foundation, St. Jude and many others. He even created his own charity event, Perk’s MessFest. The “slopstacle course” for kids is now in its fifth year, and benefits the Pinky Swear Foundation which helps families dealing with childhood cancer. Perk also regularly emcees that Foundation’s annual gala as well.
Perk lives in the western suburbs of the Twin Cities with his wife, three children and cockapoo.
Don Shelby
Don Shelby is widely considered the most decorated and honored local television journalist in the country. He has won three national Emmys, the Columbia-duPont, the Scripps-Howard, the National Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and he has been honored twice with the Pulitzer Prize of broadcasting, the George Foster Peabody.
Don continues his 45 year career in reporting after retiring from daily journalism in November of 2010. He continues to write for MinnPost, on the online daily, and is often read in Salon and dozens of other internet news aggregators.
Don was inducted into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2008 and into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle. He was named the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian of the Year, and honored by B’nai Brith with the Great American Traditions award. In 2010 he was named Distinguished Minnesotan, an honor he shares with other luminaries such as Sigurd Olson and Will Steger.
Don’s reporting has taken him around the globe from Romania to Egypt, Venezuela, Australia and the Arctic Circle. He originated the I-team concept of investigative reporting and served on the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), the county’s preeminent investigative journalism organization.
He has served as a war correspondent covering conflicts ranging from the Yom Kippur War in 1973 to the war in Iraq in 2009. Major General Richard Nash, commander of forces in the southern half of Iraq called Don, “…our Ernie Pyle,” referring to the noted combat correspondent of World War II.
Don is the author of The Season Never Ends, a collection of stories about teamwork. It is currently ranked as the #2 best seller in the coaching section of Amazon.com. He is in the middle of writing his second book on the developing failure of American journalism to meet the needs of voting citizens in a democracy.
Don is an avid outdoorsman and primitive survival specialists. He spends much of his free time climbing ice falls, mountains, hiking and canoeing his beloved BWCAW. He has a wife and three grown daughters.
Elizabeth Ries
Elizabeth Ries is a television and radio personality in the Twin Cities. She spent years as a news anchor/reporter, but is now the co-host of Twin Cities Live weekdays at 3 pm on 5 Eyewitness News (KSTP). She chats about pop culture, celebrity gossip and manages to get a few pro-kale statements on the air when she co-hosts the Margery & Elizabeth show on myTalk 107.1. Elizabeth also frequently contributes articles on food and urban farming to Edible Twin Cities magazine.
Elizabeth is an uplifting speaker who inspires attendees and she is an excellent Emcee as well!
Ian Leonard
Ian has been Chief Meteorologist at FOX 9 in Minneapolis since 2006. His science is the great outdoors and his passion is forecasting the weather. His passion has taken him from Alberta, Canada to Mississippi, Iowa and finally Minnesota. For over 20 years he has used the phrase “stay sky aware” to help viewers stay ahead of the storm. It now is a regular “hashtag” in Ian’s social media updates during severe weather season to his 35 thousand Facebook and Twitter followers. He calls his work at FOX 9 a dream job because of the 4 incredibly diverse and always entertaining seasons of the Upper Midwest. Ian graduated from the Broadcast Meteorology Program at Mississippi State University and is a member of the American Meteorological Society, The National Weather Association and The Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.
Ian is an extremely active supporter of persons with intellectual disabilities. He is on the road every month supporting the incredible athletes of Special Olympics Minnesota. You can find him “freezin’ for a reason” on most late winter weekends taking the Polar Plunge into lakes across Minnesota. In the past 8 years he has plunged 103 times and helped raise over 15 million dollars.
Ian has had his share of personal storms – making it through a traumatic brain injury in 2013 and adding the line “cancer survivor” to his resume in 2016.
Ian is a humorous and impactful Speaker who motivates organization’s teams to move through their business and personal storms – toward finding passion and purpose.
His high energy and quick wit also makes him the perfect Emcee or Live Auctioneer for your next event. He has assisted organizations in raising millions of dollars at their Fundraiser Events over the years. Attendees love him!
Paul Douglas
Paul Douglas is Penn State meteorologist with over 45 years of television and radio experience. A serial entrepreneur, Douglas has launched 7 businesses. Founder and Chief Meteorologist at Praedictix, providing weather services, consulting and briefings for media and corporate interests. Developers and engineers create unique streams of weather data, imagery and API’s for corporations via AerisWeather. The latest science and models are leveraged to provide insight for corporations factoring climate trends into investment, resilience and sustainability via ClimaTrends. Douglas is a member of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team. In 2017 he co-authored a book on climate, focused on matters of faith and science: “Caring for Creation, the Evangelical’s Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy Environment”. A frequent contributor to MSNBC, Douglas was featured in NOVA’s “Decoding the Weather Machine”, Douglas has spent the last 25 years connecting the dots between climate volatility and weather disruption.
Paul uses weather as a metaphor to track the “storms of business”, telling his unique story, and the lessons he’s learned from starting up 6 companies – often the hard way. He is also the perfect Emcee for your next event.
Daniel Shannon
Throughout his meteoric rise with top companies in the CPG, Financial Service and Retail industries, Daniel has accumulated nearly two decades of executional and thought leadership experiences. Inspired by his desire to enhance the value proposition of spaces where he has influence, by leveraging his uncommon combination of professional and personal experiences, Daniel has developed an exceptional competency in the areas of B2B sales, marketing, business development, and an UNMATCHED expertise on matters of diversity, equity and Inclusion.
Daniel’s corporate successes translate beautifully into his work as a speaker. Carefully customizing each of his presentations, based on his clients’ specific needs and goals, his approach is reflective of actual experience and proven solutions, rather than theory. On top of that, Daniel is beloved by his audiences for his signature style, combining entertainment with tangible takeaways!
Tim Gard
Humorous Keynote Speaker, Corporate entertainer and Stress Reduction Authority. Energize, unite and inspire your attendees with a Hall of Fame tears-in-your-eyes-laugh-out-loud keynote speaker who teaches how to be more resilient and inspires employee enthusiasm and creativity both virtually and at in-person events.
Talented, Innovative and Memorable, TIM provides amazing take-home value delivered with his one-of-a-kind presentation style. Becoming more resilient is not about telling jokes or laughing at everything. Instead of making light of serious issues, Tim shines a light on unseen possibilities for solutions to difficult situations. He demonstrates how to be professional, yet light-hearted throughout all his programs. Tim is an internationally recognized authority on stress reduction and conflict resolution, and his easy-to-implement techniques provide ways to diffuse, deal with, and even avoid intensely stressful encounters. Tim “walks his talk” as a successful business owner himself for more than 20 years. Before starting his business, he worked in the Sales Industry, as well as State and Federal Government in Human Services, as a fraud investigator and is a navy veteran. Recognized as a pioneer in humor based training, Tim’s down-to-earth style and real-life humor leaves a lasting impression that you will benefit from for years to come. His skillful use of ordinary items in extraordinary ways and extraordinary items in everyday ways make him one of the most popular main stage speakers on the platform today.
Tim is a certified speaking professional (CSP) & a member of the Speaker Hall Of Fame, an elite honor held by fewer than 150 speakers worldwide. The author or co-author of Just Plane Funny, My Policy Manual, Motivational Leaders he also is an inventor of stress reduction office products that are marketed and enjoyed worldwide . In his 23-year career as a professional speaker, Hall of Fame Speaker Tim Gard has spoken worldwide at more than 2500 events. Audiences from Texas to Tasmania and everywhere in between love him and his easy to implement ideas.
JoAnn Corley-Schwarzkopf
When we are our best human selves, we will have our best enterprises. That’s JoAnn’s philosophy as she helps leaders globally learn how human behavior can improve their results.
Consistently recognized as a global thought leader, She is also known for her unforgettable passion, energy, and insights. She boosts her clients’ capabilities through a primary focus on emotional intelligence, creative thinking, and the disciplines of effective leadership and management.