Category: Past Speakers

Kristi July currently serves as the Principal/Head of School at Covenant Academy of Mobile (CAM). She is highly regarded for her effectiveness as an administrator. With 19 years of experience in education, Mrs. July has worked as a teacher, Signature Academy Coordinator, and assistant principal within Mobile County Public Schools, gaining insight across urban, rural, and suburban schools. Passionate about education and workforce development, she played a key role in implementing the career academy model in local high schools, facilitating partnerships with industries to ensure students acquire the skills necessary for success after graduation. Throughout her career, Mrs. July has created opportunities for underrepresented students, organizing field visits, mock interviews, and paid summer internships, which have led many students to secure high-paying jobs post-graduation.

Mrs. July has served as a leadership coach, working with teachers, principals, and superintendents in Alabama, Mississippi, and New Mexico. Her experience includes:

• Leading the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of instructional programs
• Managing the daily operations of schools
• Designing, planning, facilitating, and evaluating professional development for teachers, students, and administrators
• Collecting evidence of instructional strategies and using it to help teachers and administrators adjust instruction

Dr. Ashley Williams is a trauma, acute care & burn surgeon at the University of South Alabama and the director for the USA Health Center for Healthy Communities. Her areas of interest include firearm injury prevention, health equity and advocacy.

She is the founder and director of Project Inspire, a hospital-led violence prevention program that provides education, exposure and mentorship for justice-affiliated youth in effort to empower them to reach their full potential in lieu of revictimization and gun violence perpetration. Dr. Williams also serves as the medical director for the USA Health Hospital-based Violence Intervention Program (HVIP). These programs are pieces to a larger collaborative comprehensive strategy for firearm injury prevention that also includes building a trauma-informed community safety network, prevention, intervention, aftercare, survivor’s network, and advocacy.

Under her leadership, the USA Health Center for Healthy Communities has a mission to help people build stronger and healthier communities. To achieve this, she has developed a framework that bridges the gap between the community and the healthcare and academic systems using community-engaged approaches to foster community-centered and outcome-focused educational and research opportunities. The programs include the development of a community advisory board, integration of the community health worker (CHW) model into the health system, hosting medical town halls, and providing educational programs to underserved students. It is partnership with community that drives the center’s research, program implementation, and advocacy efforts

Davis PacePresident,

Mississippi Enterprise for Technology

Chair, Mississippi Aerospace and Defense Alliance

Davis Pace leads the Mississippi Enterprise for Technology (MSET), a public-private partnership

at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. At MSET, Davis leads efforts to attract aerospace and defense

industries to Mississippi, working closely with NASA, the Navy, the Mississippi

Development Authority, and the state’s major universities. Since joining MSET in 2021, he helped launch the Aerospace and Defense Alliance of Mississippi (ADAM) and an annual symposium on aerospace and defense.

Before MSET, Davis spent nearly a decade in Washington, D.C., working on international

relations, technology, telecommunications, and cybersecurity issues. He served as senior staff for

the House Foreign Affairs Committee under Ranking Member Michael McCaul (TX), managing

emerging technologies, space, and cybersecurity. Davis also served as Legislative Director for

Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX) – now the CIA Director – leading reforms in cyber defense and information systems.

Davis has been named one of Mississippi’s Top CEOs by the Mississippi Business Journal, is the

inaugural Chairman of ADAM’s Board of Directors, and a graduate of the Gulf Coast Business

Council’s Masters Class. He is a member of the American Enterprise Institute’s Leadership

Network. Davis holds a bachelor’s from the University of Mississippi and a J.D. from

Mississippi College School of Law. He lives in Gulfport with his family.

John Driscoll

Director and Chief Executive Officer, Alabama Port Authority

John C. Driscoll was named director and chief executive officer of the Alabama Port Authority in 2020. Since taking the helm, Mr. Driscoll has implemented a major capital expansion program to meet cargo volume growth in the port’s coal, container intermodal, and freight rail business lines. Between state and federal grants, public-private partnerships, and port revenue, the director is overseeing a ten-year, $2 billion capital program.

The Alabama Port Authority was named the second fastest-growing port of entry in the U.S. by Forbes magazine and is the largest steel port in the U.S. The Authority oversees the State of Alabama’s deep-water facilities at the Port of Mobile and inland waterway facilities statewide. Under Driscoll’s leadership, the Port is also developing inland intermodal rail depots. Through its partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Port is actively deepening the Mobile Harbor Channel to 50 feet and widening the channel to accommodate two-way traffic. Once complete, the Port of Mobile will be the deepest port in the Gulf of Mexico.

Prior to joining the Port Authority, Mr. Driscoll was the maritime director at the Port of Oakland in Oakland, California, from 2014 to 2020, where he oversaw operations and marketing at one of the nation’s top container seaports. He is credited for improving Oakland’s operating efficiency and financial performance. Driscoll has also held a variety of leadership positions in the maritime industry, including at CMA CGM LLC, Maersk Line, and Sea-Land Service Inc.

Mr. Driscoll serves as chair of the board of directors of the New Orleans Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and is also a member of the Business Council of Alabama, among other community organizations. He earned his BS in business management from the University of Maryland.

 

Todd Martin, III is Chief Executive Officer at Southland Capital Realty Group, LLC., a real estate development company.

Mr. Martin is a professional real estate developer who has over 35 years of experience in the field. Southland Capital Realty Group owns and manages properties in eight states in the Southeast. He also devoted over 15 years to the ServiceMaster franchise business, where he won numerous awards including “Distributor of the Year”. He was also involved in site selection for franchise locations. He has held positions including ServiceMaster Franchise Association Director from 1996-2000, ServiceMaster Distributor Services Chief Executive Officer from 1990-2000, Delicious Dietitian Chairman from 2013-present, Malbis Plantation Board of Directors 2010-present, ETG Board of Directors 2005-present, Men of St. Joseph Chairman Emeritus, Board of Directors from 2008-2010, Advisor from 2010-2020, Autism-2-Ability Chairman of Board of Directors from 2020-present, and he currently serves as the Chairman for NEST of Mobile, a non-profit local mentoring agency for at-risk youth in our community.

Mr. Martin is married and has four children and five grandchildren.

Jon-Richard Little’s father Richard is from Foley Alabama. A man who’s lived many lives, Jon-Richard has been a bicycle punk, a puppeteer, a contraptor, a welder, a reality show star, a roustabout, a toilet technician, a goat farmer, a survivalist, a chauffeur, a gasoline hauler, and is currently the Ambassador of Mirth at Decatur Illinois’ Thinkwell Maker Space.
His book, “The Diary Of Fletcher Ames Hatch”, is a transcription of a family heirloom. Fletcher was the father of Dolly Little (wife of Franklin Eugene Little, of Little’s Repair Shop), the grandmother of both Jon-Richard and his first cousin, Frankie Little of Roosters Tacos & Tequila. In 1906 Fletcher was hired by the Philippine Railway to survey the construction of railroads on the island of Negros Occidental. He kept a daily diary which is a fascinating glimpse into the daily life of a colonial surveyor at the dawn of the last century.

Cartledge Weeden Blackwell, III

Cartledge Weeden Blackwell, III, “Cart,” is an architectural historian and the curator of the Mobile Carnival Museum. Blackwell was born in Selma, Alabama. He obtained undergraduate degrees in art history and historic preservation from the College of Charleston in 2005. In 2008, Blackwell received his MA in Architectural History from the University of Virginia. His scholarly focus is American art and architecture, particularly that of the Southeast. Cart authored Of People and Of Place: Portraiture in Alabama (1870-1945) for National Society of Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA). His second book, Of Color and Light: The Life and Art of Artist-Designer Clara Weaver Parrish, will be published and printed by the University of Alabama Press in 2025. Blackwell’s articles have appeared in Access, Alabama Heritage, Alabama Magazine, Arris, and Mobile Bay. He is a board and/or trustee of the following institutions: Architectural Review Board (ARB) of the City of Mobile, the Cahaba Foundation, National Register (NR) Review Board of the State of Alabama, and other historic preservation-allied entities.