Garry began her professional career as part of the management team that launched MTV in 1981 and it is that experience that shaped her view that the media profoundly influence the attitudes and opinions of people on nearly every issue.  With her 1997 appointment as executive director of GLAAD, a position she held for eight years, Joan realized she had connected her professional experience with her powerful voice.

Whether it was debating Jerry Falwell and Bill O’Reilly, or taking on The New York Times and persuading the Times to change its policy to include gay and lesbian couples on its wedding pages, Garry has been at the forefront of issues that mean something to her family and to countless other families across America.  This was never more evident than during the transformational election of 2008, when Garry was the Co-chair of the National LGBT Finance Committee for Obama for America, leading a committee of 75 fundraisers nationwide to engage and mobilize the LGBT community to champion the candidacy of President-elect Obama.

Currently a featured blogger at The Huffington Post, Garry is working to help Americans connect the front page to the world in their own back yards. She offers commentary on issues of relevance to the gay community as a columnist with The Washington Blade, and her personal essays have been published in The Newark Star Ledger, The New York Times and elsewhere.

Program Descriptions

The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time:  LGBT Equality

As one of America’s most prominent gay rights leaders, Garry offers thoughts on the current state of the movement,  examines it in terms of historical context and considers its trajectory over the next 5-10 years.  She addresses the opportunities and challenges facing the next generation of leadership, and proposes (and answers) difficult questions about the most effective ways to achieve success.

Goal-Oriented, Team-Driven Leadership

After a decade at the helm of one of the most visible gay rights organizations in America, Garry’s perspectives on leadership are authentic and unique.  From debating Jerry Falwell to persuading the New York Times to include gay and lesbian couples on its wedding pages, Garry has demonstrated leadership attributes that are forceful, effective and at the same time empathetic and respectful.  In her lecture, she shares the lessons gleaned from both her tenure as the Executive Director of GLAAD, and during the preceding fourteen years as a cable television executive with positions in strategic planning and new business development.

Media and its Impact on Changing Hearts and Minds

Historically, civil rights movements have focused on government, politics and the law to effect change.  The gay civil rights movement may have been the first to recognize and understand the power of the media to shape attitudes and opinions.   Garry shares the history and successes of this media activism, offering valuable lessons on the power of media advocacy to bring an issue to light and in so doing, change hearts and minds.

Activism: A How-To Guide

As a prominent civil rights leader with demonstrated success in effecting change, Garry speaks about what it means to be an activist, the forms activism can take and the strategies and tactics that can be employed to move people to action.

Making a Difference in Non-Profit America:
Can You Really Making A Living Doing Something You Care About?

Garry tells her own story – diving into a non-profit leadership role after a successful career as a media executive – and offers insight into non-profit work – the skills and expertise she brought with her from corporate America and the new ones she unearthed.

Bio

Garry plays a critical role as a visible media spokesperson and critic.  In 1999, Entertainment Weekly featured her on its list of the “100 Most Influential People In Entertainment.”  Garry’s articulate advocacy has been featured across all national news networks, with notable media appearances including NBC’s “Today;” ABC’s “World News Tonight;” PBS’ “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer;” CNN’s “NewsNight with Aaron Brown;” CNBC’s “Dennis Miller Live;” numerous appearances on CNN, CSPAN, MSNBC (including “Hardball” with Chris Matthews) and Fox News Channel (including “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity & Colmes”).

Her comments are frequently sought by leading newspapers, magazines and news services, including The New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, the Washington Post, USA Today, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Advertising Age and PR Week, among others; and her thought-provoking op-ed essays have appeared in outlets such as The New York Times and USA Today.

During her eight-year tenure at GLAAD, Garry led the organization through a series of high-profile campaigns, most notably GLAAD’s highly successful public education initiative to combat and expose the defamatory rhetoric of “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger.

Garry lives in New Jersey with her partner of 27 years and their three children. Her landmark 1993 court challenge to New Jersey’s second-parent adoption law made Garry the first lesbian in the state to adopt her partner’s biological children.  She also blogs with and about her kids at www.whosthegrownup.com, and on her own at www.joangarry.com.  In the spirit of using her voice to advocate for change, Garry is the first and only female singing member of the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus.

John Bowe, award-winning journalist and author of Pulitzer Prize nominee Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy, examines how outsourcing, subcontracting, immigration fraud, and the relentless pursuit of “everyday low prices” have created a frightening new market for modern slavery.

Program Description

Bowe’s eye-opening presentation describes a journey from shock and concern for abused immigrants to deeper worries about the health of American democracy. Given the prevalence of slavery throughout human history, Bowe explains, slavery and labor abuse simply aren’t ‘weird’ or unusual at all. What’s ‘weird,’ is that freedom and democracy have come as far as they have.

Using thorough and often dangerous research, exclusive interviews, eyewitness accounts, and rigorous economic analysis, Bowe examines three illegal workplaces, where employees are literally or virtually enslaved. From rural Florida to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the US Commonwealth of Saipan in the Western Pacific, he documents coercive and forced labor situations that benefit us all, as consumers and stockholders, fattening the profits of dozens of American food and clothing chains, including Wal-Mart, Kroger’s, Macdonald’s, Burger King, PepsiCo, Del Monte, the Gap, Target, JC Penney, J. Crew, Ralph Lauren/Polo, and others.

In this revealing lecture, set against the everyday American landscape of shopping malls, outlet stores, and Happy Meals — Bowe reveals how humankind’s darker urges remain alive and well, lingering in the background of every transaction — and what we can do to overcome them.

USA Today describes Nobodies as “…a masterwork and mixing pot of ideas…investigative, immersion reporting at its best.” Dennis Miller calls it “a great book…heartbreaking and important.” The Village Voice has named it “One of the Twenty Best Books of 2007.”

Bio

Bowe has appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” and has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, NPR and other outlets. He is the co-editor of Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, named one of Harvard Business School’s Ten Best Books of the Year, and co-screenwriter of the film “Basquiat”. In 2004, Bowe received the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, and the Sydney Hillman Award for journalists, writers, and public figures who pursue social justice and public policy for the common good.

Program Description

In his interactive lecture, Gustavo presents an engaging and informative discussion of ethnic stereotypes and immigration, addressing the role stereotypes play in American society, and how satire can be used to deflate them. Gustavo examines immigration (legal and illegal) and the impact of Latinos, and other ethnic groups, on this country at every level: economically, socially, culturally, politically and beyond.

Gustavo truthfully answers audiences’ questions about Mexicans and Latinos/Hispanics, and uses those answers as a jumping-off point for a broader conversation about issues affecting all immigrant groups, their role in the economy, and the political power of these groups once they are organized properly. Gustavo also works with companies, schools and associations to help them better connect with Latinos — focusing on the value that diversity brings to the workplace, to the classroom, and to society.

As he does in his “¡Ask a Mexican!” column, and in his most recent book, Orange County: A Personal History, Gustavo looks at America through the lens of his own multi-generational family’s experience emigrating to Southern California, and that of his own childhood as he struggled with the hyphenated identity that he was handed. Finally, Gustavo also examines the unique happenstance that created the Orange County that we know today; a community that, against all odds, is truly a microcosm of our society as a whole – for better and worse.

Bio

Author of the bestselling book ¡Ask a Mexican! and the column of the same name, with a circulation of two million, and Orange County: A Personal History, Gustavo is a contributing editor to the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times, and has appeared on “Today,” “Nightline,” NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” and “The Colbert Report” and elsewhere.

Gustavo received the President’s Award from the Los Angeles Press Club, an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and a 2008 Latino Spirit Award from the California State legislature for his “exceptional vision, creativity, and work ethic.” A frequent guest on liberal and conservative talk shows, where he discusses local and national issues, Gustavo was also a finalist for the 2005 PEN USA Literary Awards for Journalism for his profile on a disabled Latino veteran of the Iraq War.  He’s currently working on a socio-cultural history of Mexican food in the US,  tentatively titled, Taco USA.