Dr. Hardy Eshbaugh, Oxford, OH

Professor Emeritus at Miami University; Research Associate,Missouri Botanical Garden; President, Elizabeth Henderson Wakeman Charitable Foundation; Fellow, American Association for the Advancementof Science and the Explorers Club. He serves on the Boards of the Atlantic Salmon Federation and Hawk Mountain. He has served as Vice-Chair of the Board,National Audubon Society, Vice Chair of the Ohio Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, President of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the Botanical Society of America, the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, and the Society for Economic Botany as well as Associate Program Director at the National Science Foundation.

Lou Rena Hammond, Charleston, SC; New York, NY

Chairman and Founder of Lou Hammond & Associates, an award-winning public relations firm specializing in high-end lifestyle. A recognized expert on the marketing of style and living, Lou is an avid collector of 18th-century furnishings. She serves as vice president and board member, Spoleto USA and is on the board of Historic Charleston Foundation, Gibbes Museum of Art and the Medical University of South Carolina Foundation. She is also a member of the Charleston Tourism Commission, appointed by the Mayor.

Mrs. Peter I.C. Knowles, II -Richmond and Palm Beach

Brantley Bolling Knowles, a decorative arts and museum management consultant, is keenly involved in historic preservation and research. An Attingham Trust (UK) alumna, she presently serves on the boards of the American Friends of St. George's Chapel (UK), Gunston Hall Plantation (VA) and the Historic Prestwould Plantation Foundation (VA). A former trustee of APVA/Preservation Virginia and the Museum of the Confederacy, Mrs. Knowles is a frequent lecturer on historical and genealogical subjects.

Hugh C. Lane, Jr. - Charleston, SC

Hugh Lane is currently President of The Bank of South Carolina. After graduating the University of Pennsylvania, Lane entered the Navy and upon receiving an honorable discharge, began his banking career.

He is currently a member of the Charleston County Conservation Bank Board and has served as a member of the Advisory Committee for the ACE Basin National Estuarine Research Reserve System. He is past Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Belle W. Baruch Foundation; Trustee and past Chairman, Board of Wofford College; Trustee and past Chairman, SC Independent Colleges & Universities; Trustee and past President, Charleston Museum; past Co-Chairman, Community Relations Committee; past member, Advisory Committee for the Storm Eye Institute of MUSC; and past member, Board of Trident Urban League.

He is the recipient of Honorary Doctorates from Charleston Southern University and The Citadel, the Wofford College National Alumni Council "Distinguished Citizen Award", the Avery Citizenship Award, the Joseph P. Riley Leadership Award and the Order of the Palmetto.

Craig H Metz, Washington DC

An attorney and partner in the Washington Office of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, Metz has more than 20 years of legislative experience at the Federal level, including staff positions in the US Senate and the US House of Representatives, as well as serving in senior positions in the Executive Branch. His multiple awards include The Order of the Palmetto; and he serves on the US Advisory Board of the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge University; as Trustee of The Dwight D. Eisenhower Society; on the Advisory Board of the South Carolina Political Collections at The University of South Carolina; and, by appointment of Queen Elizabeth II, he is a member of The Order of Saint John.

John Rashford, Charleston SC

Professor of Anthropology at the College of Charleston with a strong interest in ethnobotanical research and the ethnobiological sciences generally. He is a past president of the Society for Economic Botany and is a member of the Linnean Society of London. He is currently the President of the Board of the Charleston Museum, and a board member of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.

J.G. Richards Roddey, Kiawah Island, SC

Roddey, prior to retirement, managed the Bank of America's Eastern Hemisphere operations in London. Using his investment banking experience he is now a management consultant with his own firm in Europe. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy he became a fighter pilot in the Air Force rising to the level of Colonel. He has served on a number of corporate, and university boards, as well as the Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation and the Kiawah Island Conservancy.