Category: Past Speakers

Albert Watkins Key, Jr., publishing under the name Watt Key, is an American fiction author who is known for writing young-adult survival fiction. A resident of Alabama, his debut novel Alabama Moon was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2006 and was the 2007 winner of the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award for older readers. It received a 2006 Parents’ Choice Award. Alabama Moon has been translated and published in eight languages. In 2015 Alabama Moon was listed by TIME Magazine as one of the top 100 young-adult books of all time.

Alabama Moon was made into a 2009 feature film starring John Goodman.

Watt Key is a graduate of Bayside Academy in Daphne, Alabama and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Birmingham–Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama. He earned his Masters of Business Administration from Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL. While working as a computer programmer, he began submitting novels to publishers in New York City. When he was 34, he sold his debut novel, Alabama Moon, to publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Watt currently lives with his wife and three children in Mobile, Alabama.

 

Bud McCrory has nearly three decades of water and wastewater experience and is currently the Director for the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System.  He began his career with MAWSS 29 years ago as a summer worker before returning as a full-time employee in 1994.  “Growing up in this organization has taught me many things and I am thankful to all those individuals who I have had the pleasure of working with,” McCrory says.

 

He worked his way up through the system holding positions of Unskilled Laborer, Public Service Worker I and II, Crew Chief, Public Service Supervisor I, and Maintenance Management System Coordinator.  Mr. McCrory served as Water and Sewer Director for the City of Satsuma from 2005 to 2015.  He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Faulkner University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of South Alabama.

 

He is a native and active member of the Semmes community where he enjoys coaching youth sports and is married to his wife Danielle of 25 years, and they share three children.  He is a faithful member of the Orchard Assembly of God.

Dr. Meg McCrummen Fowler is the director of the History Museum of Mobile. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History & Society from Tulane University, where she also earned an M.A. in History of Art. She is a proud graduate of the University of Alabama and holds a B.A. in history and French.  Before joining the History Museum of Mobile, Meg served as a visiting scholar in the Center for the Study of War and Memory at the University of South Alabama and taught in the Art & Art History department.  In 2018, she completed a curatorial fellowship at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Mobile Rotary Club and as district vice president for the UA National Alumni Association. She is a member of the 2022 class of Mobile Bay’s 40 Under 40. 

Dr. John Hoyle is the President of the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science (ASMS), Alabama’s only fully residential and public high school for highly motivated students seeking advanced studies in math, science, and the humanities. ASMS was founded in 1989 to train Alabama’s future leaders. Hoyle began working at ASMS in 2005 after moving to Mobile from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He has worked in public schools for over 23 years and believes education can unlock a student’s potential. Hoyle is married with two children, Jack and Lily.

 

Cartledge Weeden Blackwell, III

 

Cartledge Weeden Blackwell, III, is an architectural historian and the curator of the Mobile Carnival Museum. Blackwell is a six-generation native of Selma, Alabama. He obtained undergraduate degrees in art history and historic preservation from the College of Charleston in 2005. In 2008, Cart received his Masters of Art in Architectural History from the University of Virginia. His scholarly focus is the history and culture of the American South. In 2020, Blackwell’s first book, Of People And Of Place: Portraiture In Alabama (1870-1945), Reconstruction To Modernism was published. That work, a commission of the Alabama Chapter of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America, is followed by Of Color and Light: The Life and Art of Artist-Designer Clara Weaver Parrish. The manuscript of the aforementioned book is in the hands of the University of Alabama Press and soon to be sent to academic readers. A third book on George B. Rogers is being coauthored with Thomas C. McGehee, curator of Bellingrath Gardens and Home. Blackwell’s writings have appeared in Alabama, Alabama Heritage, ARRIS, Mobile Bay Monthly, Access, and many museum catalogues. In addition to curatorship of the Mobile Carnival Museum and writing, Blackwell serves as the president of the Board of Trustees of the Friends of Magnolia Cemetery, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cahawba Foundation, a board member of the Friends of Alabama Heritage, board member of the Friends of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, and a member of the Architectural Review Board (ARB) of the City of Mobile.

Derek Boulware-Bio
Derek Boulware is the Chief Executive Officer for Housing First, Inc., Established in Mobile in
1993, Housing First is the designated HUD-Continuum of Care (COC), “Collaborative Applicant”
for Mobile and Baldwin Co., responsible for completing the government’s main homeless
funding application and program submission requirements, as well as manage all administrative
and other government reporting mandates. Housing First serves as the homeless data
collection/Federal reporting lead and homeless coordinated entry services provider for our area,
responsible for HUD’s annual Point In time count and our community’s Project Homeless
Connect event.
Additionally, Housing First, Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit, tasked by its Board of Directors, with
providing housing, case management, and street outreach services to those experiencing
homelessness in our area. It’s the Mission of Housing First to end homelessness in Southwest
Alabama, with an agency Vision, that everyone has a safe, affordable home, as well as the
resources to maintain it.
Prior to accepting his position with Housing First in 2019, Derek spent 6 years with the American
Red Cross, serving in several leadership roles including, interim Chief Executive Officer of the
Alabama Red Cross, Executive Director of the East Alabama Chapter, and the Alabama Regional
Director for Services to Armed Forces. Prior to his nonprofit work, Derek’s professional
experience included banking, finance and business. Originally from Enterprise, AL, with an
undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama, Derek and his family have lived in
Baldwin Co. for the past 22 years, are members of Fairhope United Methodist church, and he is a
former City Councilman for the City of Daphne.

Anitra Belle Henderson joined SCHOOLS, an ed tech test prep company, in August 2022 as CEO. Henderson also collaborated with the founder of SCHOOLS to form Lyvve Strategies, a firm focusing on marketing and community mobilization initiatives using digital strategies.

Prior to her new roles, Henderson served as the Executive Director of Communications and External Affairs for the City of Mobile. She served in three terms of Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s administration focusing on community affairs, federal and state government affairs, economic development and communications. She has provided workforce opportunities for more than 4,000 youth and led the formation of Alabama Big 10 Mayors Association. She received her B.A. from the University of South Alabama. Henderson is committed to her community by serving on various boards and committees including Distinguished Young Women, Junior League, Jack and Jill of America, Girl Scouts, Ascension Providence Foundation, the Social Justice Committee at USA and the Alabama Committee on Credentialing and Career Pathways by Governor Kay Ivey. Henderson is a graduate of Leadership Mobile and the Alabama Leadership Initiative.

 

William T. Ratliff, III
Biography
Will Ratliff recently stepped down after serving 34 years as CEO of Collateral
Holdings, a company founded by his grandfather. He passed the CEO role to his nephew,
Jonathan Ratliff. Collateral’s businesses are in employee benefits, insurance services, and
commercial real estate.
Will attended Amherst College, earned a doctorate in Applied Behavioral Science at
UMass Amherst, and worked as a teacher, counselor, and school director before joining
Collateral. He has been active in many community organizations, including YouthServe,
which he helped found; Rotary Club of Birmingham; the National Conference for Community
and Justice; St. Mary’s Sewanee; Good News Children Education Mission in Kolkata, India;
the Society of International Business Fellows; and A+ Education Partnership. Civic activities
take up an ever-increasing share of his time. He is chair of an International Peace
Conference taking place in Birmingham in 2023 initiated by Rotary.
Will and his wife, Carolyn, are members of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and have
three grown children. His son Tom is married to the former Melody Gillezeau of Trinidad,
whom he met while they were both working in Costa Rica. Tom also works at Collateral. His
daughter Cassie lives and works in Atlanta. His daughter Lillie lives and works in New York
and recently married Sam Breslow.