The Trust for Public Land (TPL)   is a national non-profit organization which conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens, and other natural places, ensuring livable communities for generations to come.  TPL helps communities, landowners and public agencies prioritize, finance and protect land for public enjoyment through four conservation services including:  Conservation Vision, Conservation Finance, Conservation Transactions and Conservation Research and Education. 

The Nature Conservancy  is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy has protected more than 258,000 acres in Georgia, and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit us on the Web at nature.org/Georgia.

Penny McPhee is the President of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.  Penny joined the Blank Family Foundation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami, where she was vice president and chief program officer, directing the planning, development and implementation of the $1.8 billion foundation’s grant-making programs.  Penny has had a distinguished career as an author and television producer.  Her television programs have won five Emmys, as well as prestigious awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Association of Television Program Executives.  She is also a noted author whose pictorial history of the civil rights movement, “Martin Luther King Jr. A Documentary: Montgomery to Memphis,” was recognized in 1980 as one of the “Best Books of the Decade” by the American Library Association.  Her 1986 book, “King Remembered,” received the New York State Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Freedom.

Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1994 to 1998 and is widely heralded as the chief architect of the Republican Contract with America. Since his days as an environmental studies professor in the 1970s, he has been involved in a variety of environmental initiatives.

Jim Jacoby, Chairman of The Jacoby Group of companies is a visionary for environmentally sensitive, eco-friendly endeavors such as Atlantic Station, the largest brownfield redevelopment and platform for smart growth in the nation.  Jim’s most recent endeavor is that of creating Jacoby Energy, with a focus on green energy solutions.   Other notable, projects are those of the revitalization of Marineland as an eco-tourism and educational destination and the future development of the Kona Kai Ola environmental community, a master plan incorporating alternative energy solutions.

Terry L. Maple is president and CEO of the Palm Beach Zoo and professor of conservation and behavior at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Maple is a former president of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and was president and CEO of Zoo Atlanta from 1985 to 2003.

Terri Y. Montague is the President and Chief Executive Officer for Atlanta BeltLine, Inc.  As President and CEO she is responsible for ensuring the overall execution and implementation of Atlanta’s visionary BeltLine project, the largest and most comprehensive urban redevelopment project underway in the United States.  Over the next 25 years, The BeltLine will enrich Atlanta’s quality of life with parks, trails, transit and economic development and potentially set a national standard for transformative investment, sustainable growth, and equitable development.  Previously Ms. Montague served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Enterprise Community Partners.