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Smart Women Make Soufflé:
Ideas for Creating your Personal Economic Stimulus Plan

TRACY OLMSTEAD WILLIAMS – CEO, Olmstead Williams Communications, Los Angeles, CA

Tracy Olmstead Williams has 25 years of public relations and crisis communication experience.  As president and principal of Casey Sayre & Williams from 1998 to 2008, Williams established a reputation as a leading communications expert in the areas of security, complex technology, health sciences and financial and professional services.  Williams has particular expertise in crisis communications and litigation support.

Williams began her career at Hill and Knowlton Inc. in Washington, D.C., where she helped guide U.S. and European defense manufacturers through the government acquisition process. She developed programs aimed at key decision makers in Congress, the Pentagon, State Department, Federal Aviation Administration and the Commerce Department.

She moved to Los Angeles in 1988, orchestrating product rollouts for technology companies including Hewlett-Packard, Computer Sciences corporation, Acer Counterpoint Inc. and Citizen American Corporation. Since 2000, she has guided the launch of numerous new technology start-ups and provided strategic communications counsel to established infrastructure companies such as Oberthur Cards Systems and academic institutions including the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Her fields of interest range from emerging issues in identity theft, intellectual property and labor law to robotics, nanotechnology and biotech ethics.

Tracy served on the Workforce Investment Board of Los Angeles; the Board of Directors of the Downtown Women’s Center and The Advertising Club of Los Angeles and the Board of Trustees of St. Matthew’s Parish School.  She resides in Pacific Palisades and is married with two children.

JON P. GOODMAN, PhD – President, Town Hall Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

Jon Goodman is President of Town Hall Los Angeles, one of the oldest civic forums in the nation.  Founded in 1937, Town Hall promotes civic participation and awareness and is among the Top 10 executive speaker forums in the nation, and the only one of that group in Southern California. Previously, she was the architect, founder and Executive Director of EC2, The Annenberg Incubator Project, and Director, Distance Learning, Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California. Founded in 1995, EC2 recruited a unique combination of technologists, creative artists, industrial partners and venture capital to create the original Internet incubator. Prior to founding EC2, Dr. Goodman was the Director of the Entrepreneur Program and Professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business, leading it to top-five national rankings.  She is a co-founder of several companies, and previous Chairman of the Board of Directors of CUBancorp (NASDAQ) and currently a Director of Sage Publications, Inc.

She moderated “Something Ventured,” a 26-part series which was repeated for seven seasons on PBS, is a frequent commentator in national and international media and is co-author of Leading with Knowledge: the Nature of Competition in the 21st Century and numerous scholarly and trade articles. Dr. Goodman was selected by Wired magazine as one of the 20 people in the nation who will help form the future of the entertainment industry, by the Los Angeles Times as one of the 10 most influential people in the region’s technology business and by the Council on Urban Economic Development as a national leader in economic development.  Her business and academic career includes work with many Fortune 100 companies, venture capital firms and their portfolio companies and advisor positions to the European Union and the Federal government.

She holds an MBA degree from the University of Connecticut where she was elected to the School of Business Hall of Fame (2004) and a Ph.D. in Business Strategy/Microeconomics from the University of Georgia, where she was named Distinguished Alumna of the Terry College of Business in 1995.