Meet Our Columnists: Be Inkandescent Magazine
Welcome to our COLUMNIST page, where we highlight the work and writing of each of our clients who are experts in a variety of industries ranging from careers to health care, insurance, leadership, management and more. Every month, these columnists offer practical tips, insights, and solutions that every entrepreneur can incorporate into their business.
We invite you to send our columnists an email with questions, ideas, and suggestions. The email addresses are listed at the bottom of each bio.
If you’d like to become a Be Inkandescent Columnist, send an email to publisher and editor / publisher Hope Katz Gibbs at hope@inkandescentpr.com. Here’s to your success!
COLUMN = FOOD
Award-winning chefs Kim and Edgar Alvarez bring their good taste for the finest in gourmet eating to the FOOD + WINE column of Be Inkandescent magazine. Trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Kim has worked in some of the finest restaurants in San Francisco and Philadelphia. In fact, she met Chef Edgar Alvarez when they were cooking at The Striped Bass, a four-star restaurant in downtown Philly, perhaps best known as the scene of the anniversary dinner in the Bruce Willis thriller, The Sixth Sense.
Today Kim and Edgar are the owners of the hot Latin American restaurant Avenida in Mt. Airy, PA. Since opening in December 2009, they have received rave reviews from locals and critics. Stop by for dinner tonight — or keep checking back to their FOOD + WINE column for recipes.
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COLUMN = HUMAN RESOURCES
Sharon Armstrong has more than 20 years of experience as the owner of Sharon Armstrong & Associates. She is a human resources consultant, trainer and career counselor who consults with many large corporations and small businesses. She has facilitated training, completed HR projects and provided career transition services for a wide variety of clients in the profit and non-profit sectors. She is also the co-author of the The Essential HR Handbook.
Sharon received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Southern Maine and her Masters Degree in Counseling from George Washington University. She is a certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR).
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PHOTOGRAPHY
In the 20 years that Washington, DC photographer Steve Barrett has been taking pictures, the likes of Michael Jordan, Margaret Thatcher, Hosni Mubarak, Spike Lee and Boris Yeltsin have found their way to the end of his lens. He has photographed George Clooney, James Earl Jones and Bill and Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain.
His photos have been featured in Vanity Fair, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, USA Today and Washingtonian, among others business and general interest publications. Alumni magazines have always been some of his favorite clients and he has taken cover and inside feature shots for Harvard Auburn Stanfrond, the Career College Association and Vanderbilt.
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COLUMN = CONSTRUCTION
Jennifer Bognet is the vice president of Bognet Construction, and is responsible for many strategic and operational aspects of the company including client relations, business development, marketing and communications, human resources, and community outreach. She works closely with the executive team to ensure the effective execution of corporate strategy and goals.
In this role she defines and deploys evaluation and measurement tools and processes, and uses her expertise to enhance our project delivery system, with a focus on continual improvement.
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COLUMN = INSURANCE
Jack Cohen graduated from the University of Maryland in 1991 with a degree in consumer economics. Soon after, he founded Nu Image construction, which quickly grew into a 50-employee firm that generated $3 million in annual sales.
Jack joined Golden & Cohen in 1997 as its Chief Operating Officer, and has instituted new technologies and efficiencies that have helped the company increase revenue by more than 20 percent a year. Jack is married and has 3 children.
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COLUMN = INSURANCE
Since co-founding the Gaithersburg, MD health care benefits firm Golden & Cohen in 1992, Stephanie Cohen has helped it grow into one of the largest among female-owned companies in the Washington metropolitan region.
With more than two decades of experience in small group health insurance, disability programs and life insurance, she was a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, serves on the prestigious United HealthCare, Coventry, Aetna and Kaiser Broker Council and is a member of the Women’s President Organization, the District of Columbia Insurance Commissioner Advisory Council and The Greater Washington Health Underwriters.
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PUBLISHER, BE INKANDESCENT MAGAZINE
PRESIDENT, THE INKANDESCENT GROUP, LLC
Prior to founding Inkandescent Public Relations in 2008, Northern Virginia freelance writer Hope Katz Gibbs worked as a newspaper and magazine reporter since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986. After studying for her master’s degree in educational leadership at The George Washington University, she launched her freelance writing business in 1993.
Hope’s articles have appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, The Miami Herald, The Costco Connection, The National Press Club’s Wire, and dozens of association, business, education and general interest magazines. Read her published articles here.
In 2010, Hope launched Be Inkandescent magazine, and also began work on her first book, 100 Truly Amazing Women who are changing the world — and how you can, too..
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ILLUSTRATION + DESIGN
Michael Gibbs is the designer of Be Inkandescent Magazine and our website, Inkandesent Public Relations.
An award-winning designer and illustrator, he has been freelancing for some of the nation’s most well-known publications and companies since attending Pratt Institute as a photography and illustration major in the mid-70s.
His award-winning artwork has appeared in Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Worth Magazine, Consumer Reports, Harvard Business Review, and publications for United Airlines, Verizon, IBM, Sears, American Airlines, CitiGroup and Oracle.
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COLUMN = INSURANCE
Scott Golden, CFO of the health benefits firm Golden & Cohen is recognized as an industry leader in the small to mid-size insurance market, and ranks among the area’s top producers according to the Washington Business Journal’s Annual List.
He received a BS in Marketing from the University of Maryland in 1985, an MBA from George Washington University in 1990, and later a JD and LLM in taxation from the University of Baltimore. His advanced academic and legal degrees enable him to evaluate local and national mandates conjunction with helping his clients prepare and implement the proper strategy.
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COLUMN = MUSIC
Adrianne Hamilton has spent decades working in marketing and sales positions, working as the director of market research, designing logical databases, heading up meeting facilitations, and raising funds for charitable organizations. Adrianne received a Bachelor of Science degree in Italian from Georgetown University in 1990, then went on to get a Master of Arts degree in Italian Literature from New York University. She is fluent in Spanish and Italian. A rock star at heart, Adrianne is the lead singer of the rock band, Longtooth, and the acoustic Americana band, The Parklawn Ramblers.
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COLUMN = FINANCE
Nancy Hartsock is a Financial Advisor and Financial Planning Specialist with The Hasenberg Group at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Washington D.C. She specializes in Wealth Management, Financial planning, and multi-generational family work.
During her years in the financial services industry, she has helped her clients reach their wealth goals through hard work and a common sense approach to successful investing. Nancy began her career in the financial services industry with AXA Advisors, LLC in 2001 prior to joining Smith Barney in 2005.
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COLUMN = FINANCE
John Hasenberg is a senior vice president for wealth management with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney
in Washington, D.C. He works with individuals, families, business owners, corporations and non-profits. Featured services range from selecting investments to retirement planning to sophisticated estate planning. Prior to joining Smith Barney, he spent six years with A.G. Edwards, where he was a member of the firm’s President’s Council in 2005 and 2006.
John is active in many business and civic organizations. He was a member of the Leadership Greater Washington Class of 2007 and remains active with that organization. John currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) and the Board of Directors of the Jubilee Support Alliance. At the Greater Washington Board of Trade, he was named the 2005 Ambassador of the Year for being the top membership recruiter and served as Co-Chair of the Board’s Cultural Promotion Task Force that same year.
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COLUMN = IMMIGRATION LAW
Attorney Cynthia Hemphill is Vice President and Legal Team Manager at the DC-based immigration law firm Trow & Rahal, PC. She has practiced immigration and nationality law for more than 14 years. In addition to working to achieve the goals of Trow & Rahal’s corporate clients, she handles immigration matters for athletes, and performing artists and groups as well as family related matters including international adoption cases.
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COLUMN = TRANSFORMATIONS
Dr. Celia Im is the founder of the unique personal development program Lighting the Creative Spark,, which is a transformational tool that uses music to awaken, enlighten, and empower clients so they can release old, negative patterns that are keeping them from being happy, healthy, and effective.
Celia is an international award-winning musician and has taught on the faculties of Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland and George Mason University. Her degrees include a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Peabody Conservatory, Bachelor’s Degree from Oberlin Conservatory and she holds a certification in the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music.
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COLUMN = COLLEGE FUNDING
Columbus, Indiana native Brock Jolly has been a financial planner at Capitol Financial Partners since 2001. He holds a certification in Long-Term Care (CLTC) designation, and since 2006 has had a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation from the American College in Bryn Mawr. Brock was a Qualifying Member of the prestigious Million Dollar Round Table that year.
Brock specializes in creating long-term relationships with clients and their families. He has also worked with numerous employers to provide both core and voluntary benefits packages to their employees, including 401(k) retirement plans and unique strategies for implementing health insurance benefits at manageable costs to employers.
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COLUMN = GIRLS ON THE RUN
With more than 17 years experience in marketing strategy, branding, membership and customer programs, writer and PR expert Catherine Keightley excels at developing marketing strategies that meet and exceed revenue goals on challenging budgets and timelines.
She is currently the executive director of Girls on the Run of Northern Virginia, a position she began in June 2010 after spending nearly a decade working as an independent marketing consultant. In that capacity, she worked as a pro bono partner with The Women’s Center to clarify their evolving mission and quantify revenue opportunities; developed year-end Board of Director’s presentation.
She also co-wrote the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments brochure to increase the number of foster parents enrolled in the Respite Foster Care program. The brochure was used to develop a radio script that resulted in a nearly 30% enrollment increase.
Last spring, Catherine was instrumental in helping to organize and promote an incredibly successful fundraising benefit for Kidsave International, called Kismet for Kidsave, which raised nearly $140,000 for the program that helps connect kids in foster care with loving families.
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WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
Max Kukoy has been a Washington DC based freelance web developer/designer since 2000. Max earned his master’s degree in environmental science from the University of Oklahoma in 1993, then started working in public health and environmental policy at Washington DC based non-profits. After a few years of policy work, he started working on his organizations web site, eventually deciding to start working as a freelancer under the name maxwebworks.
Sites range from simple database-driven sites, to ones with e-commerce capability. Max uses widely used and supported open source software applications to build web sites. He believes the site should be easy for the client to use and maintain and emphasizes building accessible web sites.
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COLUMN = HUMAN RESOURCES
Barbara Mitchell is a human resources and organization development consultant who is widely known as an expert in the areas of recruitment and retention. She has experience in both for-profit and not-for-profit sectors and has consulted to a variety of organizations around the world.
She served in senior human resources leadership positions with Marriott International and several technology firms in the Washington DC area before co-founding the Millennium Group International, LLC (TMG) in 1998, which she sold in 2008.
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COLUMN = EDUCATION
Educational leader and City of Fairfax resident Ann Monday became Superintendent of the City of Fairfax Schools on July 1, 2007. She retired on June 30 as the Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services for Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), a district she has worked in since 1973 when she became a teacher at Kilmer Intermediate School in Vienna.
She then served as chairperson of the English department at Chantilly High School from 1976-1980, when she became an administrative aide at Marshall High and subsequently a subschool principal at Lake Braddock High School.
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COLUMN = LAW
Stefan C. Nicholas is a Director and chair of Jackson & Campbell’s Estates and Trusts practice group and a member of the Business Law practice group. He has extensive experience in drafting wills, trusts and all ancillary documents in connection with estate and gift tax planning, as well as asset protection planning including both on- and off-shore asset protection trusts and the use of corporate entities. Stefan also has extensive experience with sophisticated wealth transfer techniques such as grantor retained interest trusts, qualified personal residence trusts and defective grantor trusts.
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COLUMN = PARENTING
Based in the Washington DC area, Cari Shane Parven, a former television and radio reporter, writes for The Washington Post, Cooking Light, The Washington Examiner, Fromer’s Budget Travel, MYBusiness Magazine, Swimmer, Maryland-Life, Home & Design and more. She is also a contributing essayist in the new anthology, “Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex and Work in Our 40s.”
Her dream as a child was to be like Jane Goodall sitting in the forest among the chimps or Margaret Mead observing the natives in Samoa. As a mother of three and wife to one, she can do neither, so instead she blends into the culture around her and writes about what she sees. Her observations can be found in her blogs, Inside the Beltway and Under the Radar and Keepin’ It Real, where she writes about mental health issues for Gannet’s WUSA-TV. Parven is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post and the “Friendship Examiner” for examiner.com.
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COLUMN = WINE
John Peters is the Director of Wine at Culinaria Cooking School, which is scheduled to open its doors in the fall of 2010.
He has been in the wine business for nearly three decades. With his father and brother, John founded Wide World of Wines in 1982, and ran the retail business through 1989, hand selecting wines from vineyards all over the world. John then went to work for Continental Liquors until 1994, and from 1997 to 2003 he was the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Manager for De Loach Vineyards.
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COLUMN = IMMIGRATION
Linda Rahal is the Chief Operating Officer of Trow & Rahal, and has been with the firm since its inception in 1993.
Trow & Rahal represents companies and individuals in navigating the immigration process for visas, green cards, citizenship, and other immigration related matters. The firm also assists companies in preparing corporate immigration policies, conducting I-9 and compliance audits, and developing immigration related strategies for owners and employees.
Linda received her JD degree, magna cum laude, from the American University, Washington College of Law in 1992; and earned her BA degree, cum laude, in International Relations from Tufts University in 1986. Linda has been a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) for over 10 years. She is also a member of District of Columbia and Maryland Bar Associations, as well as the American Bar Association.
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COLUMN = CAREERS
Prior to co-founding Rhodes & Weinstock in 2009, Paige Rhodes spent more than 15 years in staffing, human resources, and law firm management.
Throughout her career, she gained an intricate knowledge of the temporary, temp-to-hire, and direct placement services. In addition to her staffing industry experience, Paige also spent several years in human resources, and as an HR Manager at two large law firms in the DC Metropolitan area.
The combination of in-house and outplacement recruiting experience gives her a unique understanding of the hiring needs and concerns of her clients, from large multinational corporations to small start-ups.
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COLUMN = EVENTS
Ranked one of Washington D.C.‘s top Meeting and Event Planners for 2009 by the Washington Business Journal, Roxanne Rukowicz’s Behind the Scenes Events, opened its doors in July of 2008 with a single concept in mind: to offer organizations access to an affordable full-service meeting and event planning solution.
Having worked in the Washington, DC meeting and event industry for over a decade, Ms. Rukowicz started her career at the Greater Washington Board of Trade in 1999. Her experience with this influential regional network of business leaders allowed her hands-on training from the start. What began as a mere temporary work assignment later progressed into a position as General Manager as she excelled at each advanced meeting and event planning position she held.
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COLUMN = FASHION
Charlotte Safavi has written for many publications, including The Washington Post, The British Sunday Times Magazine, House Beautiful, Victorian Homes, and Better Homes and Gardens.
Her style blogs also appear on The Huffington Post. Born in London and educated at Oxford University, her heritage is Iranian. She now resides in Northern Virginia with her husband and son. For more information, visit www.charlottesafavi.com
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COLUMN = COOKING SCHOOL
Stephen Sands (pictured second from the left with his team, Chefs Robyn Alexander and Pete Snaith and wine director John Peters) began his culinary career in 1989 as the lead assistant for Francois Dionot, the director and founder of L’Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda, MD. Stephen assisted both L’Academie chefs, and visiting guest chefs, ensuring the execution of classes for the chefs was seamless; and assisted students in the participation classes with instruction and techniques during classes.
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COLUMN = LEADERSHIP
Angela Sontheimer is the Managing Director of Lincoln Leadership Institute at Gettysburg where she is responsible for overseeing operations, marketing and curriculum design for the Institute.
She is a graduate of Gettysburg College and holds a Masters in Leadership and Liberal Studies from Dusquene University. Angela has a background in institutional advancement and has worked extensively in operations and events management. She is one of the developers and creators of the Institute’s experiential leadership development program A Transformational Journey from Gettysburg. This three-day experience uses the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg as a metaphor for addressing modern business challenges.
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COLUMN = HEALTH CARE
Robin Strongin is an accomplished public affairs expert with more than 25 years of experience working in Washington, DC. Her areas of specialization include health care, science, technology and innovation. Robin has worked with and for Federal and state governments, regulatory agencies, Congress, think tanks, nonprofit organizations, corporations, coalitions and trade associations.
She founded Disruptive Women in Health Care in 2008 to serve as a platform for provocative ideas, thoughts, and solutions in the health sphere. We recognize that to accomplish this, we need to call on experts outside of the health industry.
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COLUMN: IMMIGRATION
Steve Trow has 30 years of experience in U.S. immigration law. He is a frequent speaker on U.S. immigration and citizenship planning for high net worth clients. The articles in this series draw on presentations he has made at professional development seminars hosted by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) and other organizations in New York, Washington, Miami, London, Zurich, Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, and most recently at the Canadian national STEP conference in Toronto.
Learn more about Steve’s firm at www.trowrahal.com.. Contact Steve directly at strow@trowrahal.com.
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WRITER AND FILM EDITOR
Susan Utell has worked in all aspects of the broadcast industry—including editorial experience cutting news and programming for San Francisco network affiliates KPIX, KQED and KGO.
Her advertising agency editorial experience began with a four-year employment at the Bay Area’s first full-fledged post-production facility, One Pass Film & Video. There, Susan worked with advertising agencies; JWT NYC/Chicago; McCann-Erickson; Foot, Cone & Belding; Riney & Associates; Goodby, Silverstein and Partners; Y & R and Goldberg, Moser, O’Neill. She left One Pass in 1984 to begin a successful decades-long freelance career.
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COLUMN = MANAGEMENT
Alice Waagen, PhD, is president and founder of Workforce Learning LLC, a leadership development company that since 1997 has provided managers and C-level executives with the skills and knowledge they need to build a more productive work environment.
Prior to founding Workforce Learning, Alice served as Senior Director of Corporate Training for Amtrak in Washington DC and Director Education, Training & Development for Freddie Mac in McLean VA. In both of those positions, Alice created and implemented workplace development programs that served her internal clients from the shop floor to the executive suite.
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COLUMN = LEADERSHIP
Steve Wiley is the founder and president of the Lincoln Leadership Institute at Gettysburg. He is also an entrepreneur, author, and highly acclaimed speaker who has influenced and entertained tens of thousands of top executives from around the world. Without exception, he receives the highest ratings possible from his audiences.
His business experience includes the founding of three companies: two international franchise organizations and a national chain of fleet management centers. He has successfully negotiated multi-million dollar funding agreements for his own companies with some of the top venture capital organizations in the world. His strong leadership ability has earned him recognition in top publications including Venture magazine, USA Today, and Entrepreneur magazine.
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