Theme: Reality Shifts. Are You Ready?

What happens when our world changes drastically and fast? Currently the world is experiencing major change in almost every facet of our lives. Reality Shifts will explore the current state of the shifts happening both globally and locally, and the people and organizations that are driving this change. We will look at what these shifts are, how and why they are happening and ultimately what will come next.

Waetjen Auditorium
2001 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio, 44115
United States

Akram Boutros

president and CEO

When the MetroHealth System Board of Trustees elected Akram Boutros as president and CEO in 2013, he piloted an unprecedented transformation of Cuyahoga County’s public health-care system. Under his leadership, MetroHealth has expanded the number of locations from which it offers health care, has helped improve the economic health of the community by hiring more than 700 additional employees and has begun an $82 million expansion of its Critical Care Pavilion. In addition, its annual operating income has grown from $10.3 million in 2012 to $29.8 million in 2015.

Andrea Muto

journalist, lawyer, law librarian and international development consultant

Andrea Muto is a journalist, lawyer, law librarian and international development consultant. After serving as reference librarian for the business research center at Ernst & Young LLP in Cleveland, Muto completely turned her career trajectory on its head when she joined a D.C.-based federal government contractor implementing rule of law projects for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). She worked in Kabul, Afghanistan, as a senior legal information advisor, and in 2008 designed and staffed a new law library located on the campus of Kabul University.

Cody Peacock

founder of Spareroof

Cody Peacock is the founder of SpareRoof, a solar panel kit distribution company. Peacock has always had a passion for transportation, which led him to study the efficiency of motors ­­— specifically, electric motors and the creation and storage of the electricity needed for these motors. To that end, Peacock has spent time researching solar power, its benefits and how it could influence the future.

Connie Schultz

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and journalist

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and journalist. She worked for The Plain Dealer from 1993 to 2011, earning the 2005 Pulitzer for commentary. Schultz currently is a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate and the professional in residence at Kent State University’s College of Communication and Information. She is the author of the books Life Happens: And Other Unavoidable Truths as well as …and His Lovely Wife: A Memoir from the Woman Beside the Man. She is working on her first novel, about a working-class family in Ohio.

Elizabeth Pugh

General counsel

Elizabeth Pugh has enjoyed a 36-year distinguished career in government service. For the past 16 years, she has served as general counsel of the Library of Congress, managing a team of attorneys and overseeing all legal operations for the Library. Pugh previously served as general counsel for the National Archives and Records Administration, where she played a significant role in the resolution of a case that resulted in the opening of tape recordings made by former President Richard Nixon.

Fred Bidwell

entrepreneur, philanthropist, art collector and thought leader

Fred Bidwell is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, art collector and thought leader engaged in strengthening communities and institutions as an advocate for the arts, creativity and innovation. In 2011, Bidwell and his wife, Laura, established the Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Foundation to share their extensive art collection and foster creativity and innovation throughout the city of Cleveland.

Honey Bell-Bey

Ohio Certified Prevention Specialist

Honey Bell-Bey is an Ohio Certified Prevention Specialist, youth advocate and motivational poet who employs creative arts strategies to engage youth and adults alike. She serves on the Evidence Based Practice-Improving Prevention Practices Board for the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

John Perrine

associate professor, music department chair

A lifelong improviser, John Perrine holds a doctorate of musical arts in saxophone performance, a master’s in jazz pedagogy and a bachelor’s in music education. He is an associate professor at Cleveland State University and serves as chair of the music department. Perrine believes that music in general and improvisation in particular transcend the limits of language and inspire people to share an experience that does not come out in spoken or written language.

Mississippi Charles Bevel

singer, multimedia artist, writer, actor and lecturer

Mississippi Charles Bevel is a nationally recognized singer, multimedia artist, writer, actor and lecturer. He is best known for co-creating and starring in the critically acclaimed Broadway musical It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, which earned him a Tony nomination in 1999 for best book of a musical.

Roberta Muehlheim

Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Zoology

As a child, Roberta Muehlheim became very interested in primates through reading about the work of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. This set her on a course to learn all she could about animals. During her undergraduate education, Muehlheim concentrated her studies in animal biology, with the intention of studying wild primates. However, upon her employment at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, she began working with Dr. Tim Matson, curator and head of the Vertebrate Zoology Department, and her fascination with amphibians began.

Ron Soeder

President of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Cleveland

Ron Soeder became president of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Cleveland in 2006. When he first started working for the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland, he was unsure how the urban community would accept him. He found that he had tremendous empathy and compassion for the youth and families he interacted with. He has developed relationships that have energized him to work harder to help the youth of urban Cleveland survive and be successful, while odds and circumstances are stacked against them.

Thomas Maridada

president and CEO

Thomas Maridada is president and CEO of BRIGHT New Leaders for Ohio Schools, a bold effort to recruit and train proven leaders from varied professions and place them where we most need our best and brightest—in high-poverty public schools struggling with low achievement. Maridada is a world-class educator who over the course of a 25-year career has raised academic achievement and created a brighter future for thousands of young people. He was named the 2008 Michigan Superintendent of the Year by the National Association of School Administrators.