The Celebrating Solutions! team (from left to right): Dianne Fukami, Co-Executive Producer; Howard Rheingold, Senior Website and Web-event Producer; Ellison Horne, Project Creator and Co-Executive Producer; David Kennard, Co-Executive Producer; Joan Saffa, Senior Project Manager; Mark Roth, Chief Technologist; Sandina Robbins, Director of Outreach; and Susan Walters, Director of Communications.

Who is behind Celebrating Solutions!

Ellison Horne, creator of the SOLUTIONS project and Co-Executive Producer of Celebrating Solutions! Building Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods. Mr. Horne has worked as an independent video producer since 1983 and specializes in providing professional, yet affordable video production services to schools, hospitals, non-profit organizations and government agencies. Mr. Horne began developing the SOLUTIONS concept starting in 1991. Initially, his vision focused on using prime time television as a tool to resolve conflicts that plague communities today. However, as his concept and new media technologies continued to evolve, Mr. Horne began to see SOLUTIONS as an opportunity to combine many technologies into one format, creating what he calls Integrated Multiple Media (IMM). In 1997, after four years of dividing his time between SOLUTIONS and his video production work, Mr. Horne came to the critical decision to make SOLUTIONS his top priority. He has devoted that last four years to developing a broad base of local and national support for SOLUTIONS, raising funds for the planning phase of the project, developing the project to its current state of readiness for implementation, and securing the participation of numerous extraordinarily talented collaborators.

David Kennard, president of InCA, Independent Communications Associates, a global media consultancy and production firm, is one of the project’s Co-Executive Producers. Mr. Kennard has more than 25 years of international experience as a Senior Producer, Writer and Director of respected non-fiction multiple-media projects. He has played a leading role in the creation of fourteen major television series, including COSMOS with Carl Sagan; We The People with Peter Jennings; The Heart of the Dragon, with McNeil/Lehrer; The Communications Revolution with Arthur C. Clarke; Connections with James Burke; and The Ascent of Man with Jacob Bronowski. His work has received the national and international Emmy, the Columbia-DuPont and Peabody Awards, and awards from the American Historical Association and the International Science Film Festival.

Dianne Fukami, president of Bridge Media, Inc. and Co-Executive Producer, is a former news executive with the CBS television station in San Francisco. She has produced and directed documentaries that have been broadcast on PBS television stations throughout the country. Her work has been recognized with a CINE Gold Eagle award and been nominated for a national Emmy. Her experience as a live television producer has afforded her the opportunity to work with Hillary Clinton and Goldie Hawn among others. She has served on the Board of Governors for the regional National Academy of Television Arts and Science and sits on the Board of several non-profit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Howard Rheingold, Senior Website and Web-Event Producer, is one of the creators and former founding Executive Editor of of HotWired, the online web-based multimedia publication of Wired Ventures. He is also founder of Electric Minds, (one of Time Magazine’s ten best web sites, 1996), Editor in Chief of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog and Editor Emeritus of Whole Earth Review, 1990-1994. Mr. Rheingold is former "Tomorrow" columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, (syndicated internationally by King Features). He has authored many books, including, The Virtual Community (HarperCollins,1994), Virtual Reality (Touchstone,1993), Tools for Thought (Simon & Schuster, 1985 and 2000).

Joan Saffa, Senior Project Producer, has been producing and managing award-winning non fiction television programs for over 25 years, many of them featuring health and social topics. Her documentaries have been honored with a national Emmy, and a George Foster Peabody Award as well as awards from the San Francisco, New York and Hawaii Film Festivals. Her work has enlivened such national series as Over Easy and We the People with Peter Jennings on PBS; The Heart of Healing on TBS; and SCAN, a global technology series, on CNBC. She recently completed work as Senior Producer, with David Kennard, on The Promise of Play series.

Sandina Robbins, Director of Outreach, is an award-winning journalist and community advocate who believes in the power of storytelling. She brings to Celebrating Solutions! more than 20 years of experience covering news that makes a difference in people's lives -- from education to human rights. Ms. Robbins was based in Mexico City as a foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor Radio and contributor to NPR, Marketplace, Pacifica, Radio Bilingue and Latino USA for more than a decade. She was a CPB Public Affairs Fellow at WGBH in Boston and a panelist at several international public radio conferences. Returning stateside, Ms. Robbins produced a nationally-recognized publication, "Schools for the New Millennium" and a bi-monthly radio segment on education, "Making the Grade" about the San Francisco Public Schools. In addition to documenting solutions-oriented stories, she is the mother of two wonderful girls.

Susan Walters, Director of Communications, is the President and Founder of WaltersGroupUSA (WGU). She brings to her consulting practice a focus on telecommunications policy, disability access, sustainable agriculture and multimedia projects. WGU’s clients include America Online, Bay Area Council, Ford Foundation, Hewlett-Packard, Kellogg Foundation, California NAACP, NetNoir, and the San Francisco Giants. Prior to consulting, Ms. Walters was a Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Odwalla, and an executive with Pacific Bell. She is a Board member of the Bay Area Video Coalition and on the Development Committee of the Million Mom March Foundation.

Mark Roth, Chief Technologist, is an Internet and Online Community pioneer. Mr. Roth is a founding partner in Centerstage Chicago, one of the oldest operating websites publishing local information about Arts & Entertainment in Chicago. In 1996, Mark co-produced the first ever WebCast of the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago for CBS, Ameritech and the Chicago Sun Times. While primarily consulting not-for-profit organizations and notable websites such as BCN.boulder.co.us, www.techsoup.org and sf.indymedia.org, Mark also leads large teams to develop heavily branded websites for clients such as Universal Studios Florida and the Colorado Rockies MLB Team. Mark's career as a civic-minded technologist has produced a positive vision of sustainably using technology and mass media communications to influence and empower communities. (Website)

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