David Huether is Chief Economist of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) where he serves as the organization’s economic forecaster as well as a principal spokesman on economic matters important to America's industrial base.

The NAM is the nation’s largest industrial trade association, representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all 50 states.

The NAM’s mission is to enhance the competitiveness of manufacturers by shaping a legislative and regulatory environment conducive to U.S. economic growth and to increase understanding among policymakers, the media and the general public about the vital role of manufacturing to America’s economic future and living standards.

Before coming to the NAM in 1997, he worked as an economist with the Bureau of Economic Analysis at U.S. Department of Commerce.

David received his undergraduate degree from Guilford College ( North Carolina) in 1990 and his graduate degree in economics from George Washington University in 1997.

Jim Olsztynski (pronounced Ol-stin-skee) has been covering the plumbing-heating-cooling industry as a trade journalist since 1977. In that time he has written hundreds of major feature articles and more than 1,000 news stories and commentaries about industry affairs.

His back-page commentaries in Plumbing & Mechanical magazine have three times been awarded prizes for editorial excellence by the national Construction Writers Association. His newsletter, PHC PROFIT REPORT (since converted to an online publication), was the recipient of that organization’s 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 T. Randolph Russell Award for best construction industry newsletter, as well as 1996 APEX Grand Award Winner as top overall newsletter in the small office category. Jim also is a nine-time recipient of his parent company’s F. M. Cockrell Award for editorial achievements. The Cockrell award is named after the founder of Business News Publishing Co. (BNP), which owns Plumbing & Mechanical.

Jim started in the industry in 1977 on the staff of Supply House Times, the leading trade publication serving PHC and industrial piping wholesalers. In 1983 its parent corporation, Horton Publishing Co., named Jim as Editor-in-chief of a new magazine targeted at the contracting sector of the PHC industry. Plumbing & Mechanical published its first issue in March 1984 and has since become the top magazine in the field as determined both by advertising volume and independent readership surveys.

Michael Doyle is a Regents Professor of Food Microbiology and Director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. He is an active researcher in the area of food safety and security and works closely with the food industry on issues related to the microbiological safety of foods. Dr. Doyle is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he received his B.S. degree in Bacteriology, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Food Microbiology. He serves on food safety committees of many scientific organizations and has served as a scientific advisor to many groups, including the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine, International Life Sciences Institute-North America, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has more than 500 scientific publications and has given more than 500 invited presentations at national and international scientific meetings. In addition, he has received several research awards from academic and national scientific organizations, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the International Association for Food Protection and the Institute of Food Technologists, and was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences-Institute of Medicine.

Robert B. Gravani is a Professor of Food Science at Cornell University. He received his B.S. degree in Food Science from Rutgers University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University. He joined the Food Science faculty at Cornell in 1978, after serving as Science Director of the Cereal Institute, Inc., in Chicago and Assistant Director of the Institute of Food Science and Marketing at Cornell.

Dr. Gravani works with all sectors of the food system and has developed innovative programs for constituents in production agriculture, food processing, food retailing, and food service, as well as consumers. He has published many scientific and popular articles, and developed numerous education programs for constituents. He is currently the principal investigator of two USDA/ FDA Food Safety Initiative collaborative grants on reducing microbial risks in fruits and vegetables.

He received the Cornell Institute of Food Science Teaching Excellence Award in 1994 and was the 1995 recipient of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) Educator Award. In 2001, he received the IAFP Harry Haverland Citation Award and was named a Fellow of the association in 2003. He is also a past president of the association. Dr. Gravani is also Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and currently serves on the IFT Executive Committee. He served seven years as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. He has also been a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee on Review of Scientific Criteria and Performance Standards for Safe Foods and chaired the NAS subcommittee on Seafood, Produce, and Dairy Products.

Dr. Weber is Director, Office of Antimicrobial Resistance and Assistant to the Director in the Office of the Director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is co-chair of the Federal Interagency Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance. He is a graduate of the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University and was trained in internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital Center and Tisch Hospital in New York City. He has been at CDC since 1990 where he has worked in the divisions of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention, and the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. He is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Before his medical training, he worked on the staff of the late Senator Daniel P. Moynihan and in 1998 was assigned to the White House Office of National AIDS Policy.

Barry Michaels has over 30 years experience in the field of infectious disease investigation, control and prevention. This includes work on a variety of viral and bacterial infectious disease microorganisms, under various test conditions in diverse venues. He is a graduate of the University of Miami, beginning his microbiology career with the study of antiviral agents, tumor inhibitory substances and interferon. Work progressed to include related aspects in the marine sciences, exploring naturally occurring cytotoxic agents, marine viral agents and immunology.

In 1990 he began work for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, where he worked for 14 years, in the areas of product safety, regulatory affairs and product development. During that time he was actively involved in conducting collaborative research with laboratories and scientific groups around the world focused on effective infectious disease prevention approaches. He is currently an independent consultant and works with government, industry and non-profit scientific organizations, on various aspects of disease prevention. Active in a number of scientific societies he has published or participated in over 100 articles, abstracts, book chapters, presentations and forums on the subjects of infection control. His work has been published in journals such as Nature, Cancer Research, Journal of Food Protection and American Journal of Infection Control.

Together with scientific collaborators at the University of Wales he has just completed a series of studies to determine the actual cost of healthcare associated infections, effective control approaches and likely socioeconomic impact if these strategies were successfully implemented.