Category: Past Speakers

Alabama’s Gulf Coast Zoo

Bio – Joel M. Hamilton

Mr. Hamilton joined the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo with a long history of zoo-related work.  Prior to moving to Gulf Shores, Joel served as the Vice President and General Curator of the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans. In this leadership role, Mr. Hamilton managed the animal collections of Audubon Zoo and the Freeport McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center providing guidance and direction to all animal care staff.  Prior to his work with Audubon, Mr. Hamilton worked for many years as a licensed landscape architect designing a variety of animal facilities and served as the Zoo Director of Salisbury Zoological Park from 2008 to 2012 where he directed overall operations, increased park visitation, and improved community support.  He received his master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington after earning degrees in biology and exotic animal training and management.  Joel has been a bird keeper and the Supervisor of Birds at the Dallas Zoo.  Joel also worked at the Roger Williams Park Zoo, in Providence, Rhode Island, as the Curator of Australasia and Tropical America. 

Some of Joel’s favorite zoo memories are of his participation in field conservation projects.  He delivered the Dallas Zoo’s first Andean condor egg to the Los Angeles Zoo for inclusion in the Condor Project.  He lived in a tent for a month in the Amazon forest of Peru while collecting data for a population study of understory birds.  Joel also traveled to Cuba to assist with a field population census of the Cuban Amazon parrot and the Cuban crane.

Joel enjoys spending time with his wife and two children.  Traveling, observing wildlife and experiencing the world around us are important past-times.  As an avid fly fisherman, a fly rod is never far from his reach!

Mr. Hamilton is excited to join the Gulf Coast team and glad to be your new Executive Director!  With more than thirty years of experience as a zoo professional, Mr. Hamilton is passionate about educating guests about wildlife conservation and the environment.

Michelle Parvinrouh is Executive Director of Innovation Portal. Michelle has been a startup cheerleader for over 15 years, focusing her career on entrepreneur and startup support, business development, and organizational improvement. She has provided mentoring and coaching to entrepreneurs of all types, in various sectors, and across multiple subjects. Most notably, she has provided investor pitch coaching to early stage startups, but has also provided other leadership, organizational structure, HR, funding, and fundamental startup support.

Originally from Mobile, Michelle earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Management with a major in Marketing from the University of South Alabama (USA). She spent most of her career in Colorado working to support entrepreneurs and early-stage startups and is now utilizing her experience to support the local economy. Michelle earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Colorado at Denver (CU Denver). Soon after graduating, she became the Program Manager for the Bard (now Jake Jabs) Center for Entrepreneurship at CU Denver. While in this position, she helped to support Denver’s inaugural Startup Week, which is now the largest in the world. After moving to Colorado Springs, Michelle became the Executive Director of Peak Startup, an entrepreneurial hub that is cultivating the city’s startup ecosystem. Michelle also served as a Program and Operational Specialist at Exponential Impact, a 14-week accelerator for tech startups.

Michelle’s role as the Executive Director of Innovation Portal allows her to utilize all of her experience in program development, resource curating and connecting, nonprofit management, and startup community building to fulfill her passion of fostering economic vitality in her hometown.

She holds the following positions to support the greater innovation and entrepreneurial community:

• Investment Council Member: Portal Fund
• Board Member: University of South Alabama Melton Center for Entrepreneurship
• Team Leader: I-Corps (at USA)
• Mentor: RAMP (at USA)
• Organizer: Startup Weekend Mobile
• Committee Member: BIO Alabama Workforce
• Committee Member: Dumas Wesley Pencil Company Incubator
• Task Force Member: Downtown Mobile Alliance Design for Safety and Development
• Board Member: Chickasaw Schools – Business Administration
• Executive Committee Member: Minority Business Development Program (at USA)

John C. Driscoll
Director and Chief Executive Officer
Alabama State Port Authority
Mobile, Alabama
John C. Driscoll began serving as the new director and chief executive officer of the
Alabama State Port Authority on June 1, 2020. Prior to joining the Port Authority, Mr.
Driscoll was the Maritime Director at the Port of Oakland in Oakland, CA. At Oakland,
John had operational and marketing oversight of one of the nation’s top 10 container
seaports, and credited with improving that seaport’s operating efficiency, financial
performance and community relations.
Mr. Driscoll holds over 27 years of global maritime industry experience. Prior to joining
the Port of Oakland, Mr. Driscoll served as vice president of export sales for CMA CGM
(America) LLC, a leading global container shipping group. His tenure at CMA and CGM
included business development in both the U.S. and Caribbean Basin and developed
pricing strategies for 19 liner services in the U.S. East/West trade routes. Mr. Driscoll
started his career with Sea-Land Service and later joined Maersk Line successfully
developing business operations in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
John Driscoll earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Management with an emphasis
on Transportation and Marketing from the University of Maryland (College Park). He is a
native of Bethesda, MD. John and his wife, Linda, have three children and reside in
Mobile, Ala.

Mike Bunn is a historian and author who has worked with several cultural heritage organizations in the Southeast. He currently serves as Director of Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama. He is author or co-author of several books, including Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era; The Assault on Fort Blakeley: “The Thunder and Lightning of Battle (forthcoming in 2021); Early Alabama: An Illustrated Guide to the Formative Years, 1798-1826; Alabama From Territory to Statehood: An Alabama Heritage Bicentennial Collection; Well Worth Stopping to See: Antebellum Columbus, Georgia Through the Eyes of Travelers; Civil War Eufaula; Battle for the Southern Frontier: The Creek War and the War of 1812; and Images of America: The Lower Chattahoochee River. Mike is editor of Muscogiana, the journal of the Muscogee County (Georgia) Genealogical Society. He is also Chair of the Baldwin County Historic Development Commission. Mike earned his undergraduate degree at Faulkner University and two masters degrees at the University of Alabama. Mike and his wife Tonya live in Daphne, Alabama with their daughter Zoey. www.mikebunn.net