CDR Beth F. Coye, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Commander Coye served twenty-one years as a U.S. Navy line officer. She was one of the Navy’s first women commanding officers of a shore command. She has been published in the Naval War College Review and the Naval Institute Proceedings. She is the publisher and overall editor and creator of My Navy Too, a creative memoir that addresses issues related to women in the military. She has spoken and written many articles and point papers regarding the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. Recently she edited We Are Family Too, a collection of moving letters from gay and lesbian servicemembers. She has also served in many leadership capacities as a fifteen year member of the Rogue Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. She received her B.A. in Political Science (Wellesley College), an M.A. in International Relations (American University) and a Certificate in Naval Warfare (Naval War College). She has taught at several colleges and universities, including the Naval War College, Newport, RI; Mesa College, San Diego, CA; San Diego State College, and the University of San Diego.

Dudley Gaffin

Mr. Gaffin is the senior partner of Gaffin & Mayo, P.C., and a graduate of Brooklyn College and the New York University School of Law. He is admitted to practice law in the Supreme Court of the United States, the courts of the State of New York, the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, the Federal District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the United States Tax Court. He is a trial lawyer with considerable experience in many types of court matters including a wide variety of commercial matters, tort claims involving serious personal injuries, legal and medical malpractice, shareholder derivative actions, corporate disputes and dissolutions, employment discrimination, partnership disputes, divorce and family law, trademark and copyright infringement, professional disciplinary proceedings, and white collar criminal matters. He served in the US Army during World War II.

Robin Morgan

Ms. Morgan is an award-winning writer, feminist leader, political analyist, journalist, and editor. She has published 20 books, including six of poetry, four of fiction, and the now-classic anthologies Sisterhood is Powerful, Sisterhood is Global, and Sisterhood is Forever. Her work has been translated into 13 languages. A founder of contemporary US feminism, she has also become a leader in the international women’s movement for 25 years. Recent books include: A Hot January: Poems 1996-1999; Saturday’s Child: A Memoir; her best-selling The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, updated and reissued in 2001; and her new novel, The Burning Time. Her new nonfiction work, Fighting Words: A Tool Kit for Combating the Religious Right, came out in September 2006.

Gloria Steinem

Ms. Steinem is a writer, lecturer, editor, and feminist activist. She travels in this and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of indigenous peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. In 1972, she co-founded Ms. magazine, and remained one of its editors for fifteen years. She continutes to serve as a consulting editor for Ms., and was instrumental in the magazine’s recent move to join and be published by the Feminist Majority Foundation. In 1968, she had helped to found New York magazine, where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles. As a freelance writer, she was published in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and women’s magazine as well as for publications in other countries. She has produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO, a feature film about the death penalty for Lifetime, and been the subject of profiles on Lifetime and Showtime. Her books include the bestsellers Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Outrageous Acts and Everday Rebellions, Moving Beyond Words, and Marilyn: Norma Jean, on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Her writing also appears in many anthologies and textbooks, and she was an editor of Houghton Mifflin’s The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History.

RADM Alan M. Steinman, MD, USPHS/USCG (Ret.), MD, MPH

RADM Steinman is the former Director of Health and Safety for the U.S. Coast Guard, in which he served as both the chief medical officer and chief safety officer. During his 25 years of service in the Coast Guard and Public Health Service, Dr. Steinman participated in numerous life-saving medical evacuations of injured merchant seamen and fishermen, often in hazardous weather and sea conditions. He developed the Coast Guard’s system of emergency medical services, and was instrumental in creating the Coast Guard’s EMT School. His expertise in operational and environmental medicine earned him an international reputation in cold-weather medicine, hypothermia and sea-survival. He has published numerous articles and texts in these areas, and he has lectured in both national and international conferences on occupational and environmental medicine. In 1997, Dr. Steinman was appointed by President Clinton as the only medical officer on an executive commission studying Gulf War Illness. He is a graduate of MIT, Stanford School of Medicine, and the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. He earned his Masters Degree in Public Health from the University of Washington. He is Board Certified in Occupational and Preventive Medicine. He currently serves as a medical consultant to the Coast Guard and other organizations in occupational and environmental medicine.