Larry Richard – Common Ground Founder

As a marketer and promoter, Larry has produced nationally touring art and technology events for nearly 20 years. Gathering together artists, corporate sponsors and technology innovations, he’s produced exhibitions, conferences and public events, each drawing thousands of attendees and generating significant print, broadcast and online media coverage, including Shared Dreams, a collaboration of Cuban and U.S. artists,  the national tours of The Dezo Hoffman Collection and the Legends of Rock Collection, each being collected works of fine art photography, and Online Expo, a conference and exposition in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco in 1994 demonstrating to business people and consumers alike what the Internet future had to offer.

With the ongoing success of Shared Dreams since 2004, Larry has turned his attention to leveraging this experience in order to support his passion for a sustainable environment. Common Ground was born from this desire to encourage artists and technologists to use their talents and imagination to communicate with each other – and by extension with the rest of the world – about issues of equal importance to every one of us on the planet: A clean environment for ourselves and our children.

Iva Kaufman
Co-founder of Art, Culture & Technology (ACT), and co-producer of public art installations for the Downtown Arts Festival in New York; Art Center South Florida; the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia; and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. For over 20 years, Ms. Kaufman has focused on funding and advocacy for conflict resolution, environmental issues, and women's economic empowerment as both a philanthropic advisor and grantmaker.  She is currently on the board of the People's Movement for Human Rights Learning as well as the Circumpolar Conservation Union, while advising numerous media and advocacy projects that are national and global in scope.

Eileen Newmark
Eileen serves on the board of WebPlay, an internet-based arts collaborative program for schools in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, while concurrently she manages the web marketing strategy for a product division at IBM. With her doctorate in Intercultural / International Communications, Eileen helps global companies and non-profit organizations in the development of programs and products for multicultural audiences.  Her passion is in using interactive media technologies to solve business problems as well as improving communications within and between nations, cultures and people. 

Barbara Siesel
As founder of the Storm King Music Festival and Tugboat Music, Barbara is a world renowned, internationally touring flutist performing new multi-media works and traditional recitals. Barbara was an Electronic Music Fellow at the Juilliard School, the creator of the interdisciplinary arts curriculum at the New World  School of the Arts, a panelist for New York State Council on the Arts, and a grant recipient from New York State Council on the Arts and the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts).