Speakers

All speakers will range from 3 – 18 minutes. Below are the four keynote speakers along with additional talks and performances.


Stanley Hainsworth

Tether is a group of friends who are passionate about one thing. Telling stories that matter. Tether was born from the desire to work on brands that share the desire to create passionate, emotional connections with customers. Everything that our team of visionaries, strategists, designers and implementers create tethers back to the core of the brands we partner with.

Previous to founding Tether, Stanley was VP Global Creative of Starbucks where he oversaw all creative aspects of Starbucks – new products, packaging systems, seasonal promotions (in-store and out-of-store materials), brand campaigns, advertising and collateral materials.

Stanley spent twelve years at Nike as a Creative Director working on everything from hang tags to annual reports to the Olympics. After Nike he moved to Denmark to join the Lego Company as their Global Creative Director. There he directed a total visual overhaul of the Lego brand from top to bottom, including packaging, the web, retail and brand stores.

Stanley is a national board member of AIGA, a featured speaker on Creativity worldwide and the recipient of awards from ID Magazine, Communication Arts, The Library of Congress, Graphis, Type Directors Club, HOW International, HOW Regional, NW Design Awards, PRINT International, AIGA National, AIGA Regional, Rosie’s, POP Times, and Communication Arts Illustration, Retail Interiors (Best International Store and Best Retail Theater) and MAPIC (Best Retail Store).




Marjorie Guyon

Marjorie Guyon’s artistic vision speaks strongly of her origins in poetry. Rachael Sadinsky, Curator of the University of Kentucky Art Museum, describes her work as “multi-panel, painterly abstractions, at once dense and ethereal, that resonate with the sensibility of ancient wall paintings in their timeworn textures and richly evocative forms.” Originally from New York, Guyon lives and works in Lexington, Kentucky.




Ben Lacy

Thousands of awestruck conventioneers have watched him move effortlessly from Led Zepplin…to Stevie Wonder…to Van Morrison, not just playing the guitar parts…playing all the parts, at the same time. Snapping and slapping nasty bass grooves, stabbing inspired chord voicings, thumping staccato drumbeats and playing sassy solo lines…all simultaneously. But this isn’t just a circus trick. It’s pure inspiration crafted with superhuman precision and Mojo to burn.




Jim Bates

Jim Bates has served as executive vice president and general manager of HRTV since 2005. He served in a variety of advisory capacities prior to his 2005 appointment. His responsibilities include overall P and L responsibility, while developing and implementing the company’s strategic plan. He has cultivated relationships with advertisers and distributors in the cable and satellite industries, encompassing presenting and negotiating affiliation agreements. This year, he has been the driving force behind the network’s unveiling of a new broadband channel, and the inclusion of Equestrian programming into HRTV’s programming slate.

Mr. Bates has an extensive track record of success in cable, sales, distribution, marketing and advertising. Prior to joining HRTV, he enjoyed a successful tenure as the senior vice president of US and international distribution of The Golf Channel from 1997-2001. In that role, he led a team of 25 sales and marketing professionals, and TGC distribution grew from seven to 42 million households.

From 1989 through 1996, Mr. Bates worked for Cablevision Systems Corporation in NY. Initially, he was assistant general manager, director of sales and marketing for SportsChannel, New York. From there, he ascended to senior vice president, general manager, SportsChannel, NY, beginning in 1993, and then senior vice president, general manager, Prime Sports Channel Networks, in 1996.

Mr. Bates handled a variety roles for the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company from 1981-89, including director of affiliate relations for Home Team Sports from 1983-89. He began his career at ESPN in 1979, as the fledgling cable network began operations. He was the Eastern Regional Sales Manager from 1979-81.

Mr. Bates was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree from Springfield College. He currently resides in Celebration, Florida.




Jim Embry

Jim Embry of Lexington, KY, a speaker with the Yes! Magazine Speakers’ Bureau, brings an unwavering belief that it is possible to build a socially just, sustainable, and peaceful society that reflects and shares the highest ideals of being human. Jim’s lifetime commitment to community activism had its beginnings with civil rights movement when he was 10 years old. More than 30 years ago he helped found Lexington’s Good Foods Cooperative, and continues to promote urban agriculture. He served as the Executive Director of the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership in Detroit for 4 years. In 2005, Jim returned to his roots in Kentucky where he founded the Sustainable Communities Initiative. Dedicated to nurturing young people as social change agents, Jim works with young and not-so-young to create sustainable communities on a healthy planet.




Christine Kuhn

Christine Kuhn is a visual artist, activist and art instructor based in Lexington, KY. As an artist, Christine is interested in exploring topics which (outside of the realm of examinations of pathological states) are “swept under the rug” of modern western civilization. She investigates violence, cultural and racial prejudice, irrational urges, death, romantic obsessions, religious faith and zealotry, tabloid story lines, sexual deviation and transgression, intuition, primitive and obscure cultural practices, personal ritual, poverty and other taboo subjects.




Britt Selvitelle

Britt Selvitelle is the Twitter Web Engineering Lead. Having spent most of his life in Kentucky, he now resides in beautiful San Francisco, CA. Brought on by Obvious in early 2007, Britt worked as one of three engineers at the inception of Twitter, working primarily on scaling the back-end architecture. He now focuses on innovating how users experience Twitter on the Web and how developers experience working with their craft.




Wes Keltner

Wes is the founder and creative principal at TAO Agency

Wes created TAO Agency in the Spring of 2006. Two days after filing his biz with Uncle Sam, Wes gained his first client, American Apparel. Wes placed American Apparel into the virtual world of Second Life, which became the first “real life” retailer to appear in a virtual world. The TAO Agency received many accolades from the press including making the front pages of The Wall Street Journal and Ad Age. His work also appeared in GQ, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, CNET, MSNBC, Forbes, Business Week, MTV, FOX News and Reuters.

After American Apparel launched in Second Life the TAO Agency became one of the most sought after agencies in the US for experimental concepts and gaming/virtual world branding ideas. Agencies such as BBH, McCann Eriksson, Carmichael Lynch, Wunderman, Young and Rubicam, JWT, Hill & Knowlton, Starcom Mediavest and BBDO trust TAO’s knowledge of experimental advertising landscapes.

His current client list includes: American Apparel, Ford Motor Company, M&M/Mars, Fed-Ex, AT&T, Sprint, GE:Ecomagination and the entire global Unilever family.




Bill Cloyd

In 1998, Bill Cloyd, Mechanical Engineer and former high school physics teacher, founded Newton’s Attic, a highly unusual physics and engineering educational non-profit. From his youth, Cloyd was a natural engineer with a passion for designing and fabricating huge constructs that could be used to demonstrate daredevil human feats and the principles of physics all in one. The 80 foot tall free fall tower and the 40 foot long human launcher were early indications of Cloyd’s imagination and ambition.

Frustrated by the confines of the classroom and exposed to the need of science and math teachers for resources to make their classes more appealing, Cloyd was inspired to create Newton’s Attic. He began to work toward creating an unusual and engaging approach to educating students about the excitement and fun available to them through physics and engineering. Using the concept of play as the ultimate learning tool, Cloyd now has a library of larger than life devices and programs, including his most recent foray into robotics competitions, which allow students to engage in hands-on design, fabrication and use of their own robotic arms and grippers in a super-competition called Mechanalia. These programs are utilized by school districts, home-schoolers, and in summer camps.

Since inception, Cloyd has worked with schools in Central Kentucky, including Jessamine, Scott and Woodford counties, numerous schools in Fayette County, and with schools as far away as Colorado. Newton’s Attic is also piloting a program where robots can be controlled over the Internet, which will allow for nation-wide and even world-wide competition.

In addition to his role as president and owner of Newton’s Attic, Cloyd is a professional engineer and owner of an engineering consulting company, Mark IV, Incorporated.




Kris Kimel

Kris Kimel is President and a founder of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC), a non-profit company with an international reputation for designing and implementing a range of innovative initiatives. Over the 21 year life of KSTC dozens of projects have been funded by diverse supporters involving corporations, private foundations, state and federal governments. KSTC funds important R&D and technology commercialization projects at Kentucky universities. It also designed and manages the Kentucky Enterprise Fund (KEF)…an early-stage venture fund which currently holds over 60 equity positions in innovation-driven Kentucky companies.

Kimel is a leader behind the vision and implementation of Kentucky Space…a nonprofit enterprise focused on the design, development and application of entrepreneurial and educational space platforms.

He is also the founder of the international IdeaFestival® (IF)…a world-class event that attracts leading and highly diverse thinkers from across the nation and around the globe to explore and celebrate innovation, imagination and game-changing ideas.




Todd Willey

Todd Willey is working to build the Utopian future. With a work history rooted in security and software integrations for the healthcare industry, he is looking forward to building software that helps connect people in interesting ways. He is a principal of Rubidne and Fine Slacks, and is founder of technology collective Collexion. A movement is underway to create a unit of measurement based on the length of his beard.




Karen Gerstandt

Karen Gerstandt of Lexington, via Hamburg, Germany knows that the world can be saved with one tiny tube. Scientist, visionary, artist and chemical engineer, Karen’s goals are to provide the world with clean water and clean energy; both possible with cutting edge membrane technology. Her efforts with membranes that utilize fresh and saltwater for clean energy generation can be seen in the world’s first osmotic power plant that opened in November, 2009 in Norway. Carrying that work forward, and with a vision that no one on this Earth must do without clean water, her current research at the University of Kentucky, in conjunction with Statkraft, will improve current membrane technology to help fulfill both goals.




Paige Hankla

As unique as she is talented, Paige has always had the ambition to reach to the next level! At an early, she had a twinkle in her eye and a smile that could melt your heart. after achieving a college degree focused in aviation and a “real job” in Frankfort, KY, she needed something else to display her true passion. She began hooping as a hobby in 2007, and quickly showed a true zest for performance art. She now participates in several hoop based performances and has been seen with Amalgamation Fire Nation, March Madness Marching Band, Passionfire, Sacred Fire Circus, Poi Vision Division, and more. Paige is constantly looking for something new to add to her act, and now displays fire eating and body transfers, magic wand manipulation, fire hooping, double hoop manipulation, and aerial silks.




Matthew Higdon

Matthew had his first initiation into meditation and somatic awareness 12 years ago. After discovering Ki (chi), Aikido and Shiatsu as a teen, the stage was set for martial and healing arts. A former chef and 2006 graduate of the Lexington Healing Arts Academy Massage program and now their yoga program, he is both a licensed massage therapist and a registered yoga teacher. With his extensive anatomy and physiology studies and training in modalities including Lymph Drainage and Craniosacral therapies, Thai yoga bodywork, yoga therapy as well as many modern and ancient yoga disciplines, he brings a balance of science and spirit to the massage table and yoga mat. He currently has his own practice and a member of Summit Health, a holistic healing practice that includes: psychiatric nursing, dialogue, dietary guidance, yoga therapy, hormone testing, individual and corporate wellness planning, massage and therapeutic bodywork. He longs to help others find embodiment and freedom from limitations imposed by disharmony in the physical that leads to less energy, mental clarity, and bliss. Matthew is also planning a wellness center, envisioning holistic healthcare reform and advocating dialogue and sustainability.