Jim Marggraff is a serial entrepreneur who invented the LeapPad Learning System, the Livescribe Smartpen and other innovative technologies. Marggraff is also a parent of entrepreneurs and the author of “How to Raise a Founder With Heart.”

A serial entrepreneur, Jim has spent his career founding successful companies on the forefront of innovation in communication, education, technology, personal productivity, and the advancement of human thought.

Always equipped with a Problem to Solve, Jim’s ideas and inventions continue to provide game-changing solutions in the fields of communication, education, and VR and AR technology, and peace across a range of companies and charitable organizations.

Lauren Stephens is the Chief of Staff at Peace Corps, In this role, Lauren manages a robust portfolio that includes Global Operations, Volunteer Recruitment and Selection, External Affairs, Safety and Security and general oversight of the advancing the director’s overall priorities.

She joined the Peace Corps in September 2021 as the Associate Director of External Affairs, after nearly 10 years of service in the Government of the District of Columbia. Most recently, Lauren served as the Chief of External Affairs at the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), managing public information, policy and legislative affairs, and community engagement on behalf of the 1100 members of the DDOT team. During her tenure at DDOT, Lauren handled press and external affairs activities around some of the agency’s most notable projects and initiatives including the inaugural Open Streets event, major infrastructure projects like DC Power Line Undergrounding Project (DC PLUG), and the opening of the largest infrastructure project in DDOT’s history, the new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, among many others.

Lauren is an experienced professional with over 15 years of progressive experience in the public and private sectors building strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders. She earned a Master of Arts in Public Communication from American University and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Howard University.

Brewer earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Lawrence University and his Juris Doctor from the University of San Diego School of Law. Prior to law school, Brewer served in the United States Army as an Airborne Ranger and received the Silver Star and two Bronze Stars for his service in the Vietnam War. He has been a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers since 1999.

Brewer previously served as a Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles County from 1975 to 1977, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California from 1977 to 1982, where he successfully prosecuted a variety of cases including espionage, bank robbery, murder for hire, and aircraft hijacking. He held various management positions, including Assistant Chief of the Criminal Division.

From 1982 to 2018, he had been in private practice, including from 1991 to 2009 as a partner at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, and from 2009 to 2014 as a partner at Jones Day.

Greg is a retired certified public accountant and personal financial specialist who opened his own firm in 1979. During his career, he wrote four professional continuing education accounting and finance courses and was a keynote speaker at five national conferences. Greg has taught many courses as a guest professor in the master’s degree in taxation program at Arizona State University and has made presentations to more than 20,000 CPAs and chartered accountants worldwide. He was also president and owner of a firm that specialized in metal fabrication for the telecommunications industry and of an international health care software development firm.

Greg joined Rotary in 1982. He has served Rotary International as vice president and director. During his time on the Board of Directors, he chaired committees including the Audit Committee and the Board Council on Legislation Advisory Committee. He also served on the Operations Review Committee and The Rotary Foundation’s Investment Committee, among others. Other roles he’s held include training leader, RI president’s representative, and representative to the Council on Legislation.

As a Rotary Foundation major gifts adviser, Greg organized his district’s Million Dollar Dinner, which raised more than $3.1 million in one night. He enjoys applying his professional knowledge and skills to help Rotary’s club, district, and zone leaders resolve funding questions. He says, “There is an education gap out there dealing with the finances of Rotary at all levels, and I’m glad to have served as a go-to person for questions.”

Greg has also been active in numerous local, regional, and national professional organizations, community groups, and charities, including as a treasurer and board and committee member.

Greg has received the Service Above Self Award and The Rotary Foundation Citation for Meritorious Service. He and his spouse, Pam, are Major Donors and members of the Arch Klumph Society, Bequest Society, and Paul Harris Society.

Sophie Andersen is one of three young people from across the world representing Interact on the Rotary International Youth Advisory Council—a group of impassioned changemakers who suggest Youth Program policies to the RI Board of Directors and create innovative programming to improve the experience of young people in Rotary around the globe.

While she now lives in Atlanta as a first-year Biomedical Engineering student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, she is originally from Dana Point, California, where she started her Interact journey in middle school, volunteering with the Dana Hills High School Interact Club after her Rotarian grandfather suggested she join the group. Inspired by the high school students’ passion for the community and determination to improve the lives of those around them, she officially joined the Dana Hills Interact Club when she became a freshman and grew her involvement with the club throughout the years, eventually becoming the president during her senior year.

Also in her senior year of high school, Andersen also became the District 5320 Interact Governor—the leader of the District Interact Committee—where she successfully grew the committee from two to seven members throughout her term and then to over twenty members for the following term, designed and executed three interactive training workshops, established a team that posted the committee’s first ever newsletter to highlight the achievements of youth throughout the district and empower youth voice, spoke at the inaugural Zone Interact Convention where she educated attendees about the structure of the District Interact Committee and how they could develop their own, and developed (and is currently working on) the District Interact Committee Guide to teach other districts how to grow their District Interact Committees.

Andersen’s commitment to service extends beyond Rotary as she worked as a Lab and Teaching Assistant in a biotechnology class throughout her senior year, pioneered a free helmet distribution through the Mission Hospital Gift Shop which distributed over 200 helmets in 3 months, spoke at multiple Capistrano Unified School District meetings advocating for mental health programs and facilities improvements, and developed an organization called ENGAGE to connect over 250 elementary through high school students with opportunities to develop their passions and skills while helping the community. Her leadership and dedication to the community has been recognized by U.S. House of Representatives Congressman Mike Levin, P.E.O. as an International S.T.A.R. Scholarship recipient, and by the Coca-Cola Scholarship Federation as 1 of 1,557 Coca-Cola Scholarship Semifinalists from over 91,000 applicants across the country. Dedicated to serving in STEM, she was also one of three students from California selected by the California Department of Education to attend the National Youth Science Camp with over 90 other delegates representing the top emerging scientists and engineers in the United States and Latin America.

As the student of the year and a commencement speaker at her high school, Andersen leads with integrity and is guided by the Rotary 4-Way Test and will carry these values into her future. While she is not sure where her Rotary journey will take her yet, she is passionate about youth education, healthcare, and the eradication of tuberculosis.

Dr. Barry is the developer of the BrainWise Program and founder of the BrainWise nonprofit organization. Her background as a public health, psychiatric, and school nurse exposed her to the lasting effects of poor decision making, and the need to teach thinking skills to the underserved, as well as to the general population. She has conducted marketing research studies for Fortune 500 companies, taught research to nursing students as an adjunct professor, and been the principal investigator or co-investigator, of more than 50 research studies on topics ranging from marketing issues to domestic violence. Since 2007, her research efforts have focused on the behavioral outcomes of BrainWise graduates. She has worked with independent evaluators, government researchers, and university professors whose results have been published and presented at national and global conferences. The findings have consistently found that BrainWise graduates show significant improvement controlling emotions, inhibiting impulses, and coping with problems. BrainWise is taught in schools, youth organizations, church groups, businesses, jails, homeless shelters, mental health services, and health agencies throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, China, India, Taiwan, and other countries. The U.S. Indian Health Services has approved BrainWise as a program that benefits Alaska Natives and American Indians.

Stephanie A. Urchick, of the Rotary Club of McMurray, Pennsylvania, USA, is the selection of the Nominating Committee for President of Rotary International for 2024-25, a decision that would make her only the second woman to hold that position. She will be declared the president-nominee on 15 September if no challenging candidates have been suggested.

With the world facing incredible challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, disasters driven by climate change, and conflict in many regions, Urchick says Rotary’s leaders can offer a vision and a plan for overcoming these challenges.

“Measures taken by Rotary leadership to survive and end critical challenges often make our organization stronger and more resilient for future events,” Urchick says. “This kind of essential leadership also creates new levels of cooperation, even among rivals, when Rotarians pull together as people of action to serve and solve a crisis.”

Making regionalization a priority is crucial, says Urchick.

“Because Rotary operates in more than 200 countries and regions, it is vital to recognize that the organization has the potential to become more efficient and effective by understanding and reacting to how regional differences affect the way Rotarians work together to address providing service, promoting integrity, and advancing world understanding, goodwill, and peace,” Urchick says.

Urchick is partner and chief operating officer of Doctors at Work LLC, a consulting and training company. She holds a doctorate in leadership studies from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is active on numerous community boards and committees, and has been honored by organizations including Zonta International and the Sons of the American Revolution.

A Rotary member since 1991, Urchick has traveled to Vietnam to help build a primary school and to the Dominican Republic to install water filters. She studies several Slavic languages, has mentored new Rotarians in Ukraine, and coordinated a Rotary Foundation grant project in Poland.

Urchick has served Rotary in many roles, including as a director, Foundation trustee, and chair of the RI Strategic Planning Committee and the Foundation’s Centennial Celebration Committee. She currently serves on the Election Review Committee and the Operations Review Committee. She is a Rotary Foundation Major Donor and a member of the Bequest Society.