MERIDIAN COMMUNICATIONS - Key Persons

Bill was the vice president of government affairs at Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). With almost 25,000 members, ABC is one of the leading national organizations representing America's business community and the U.S. construction industry. At ABC, Bill led a team of 23 professionals, in a political campaign atmosphere, in federal, state and local government activities: political action and issue advocacy; legislative; grassroots; and legal and regulatory.

Karen Johnson was vice president of social marketing and public affairs at Porter Novelli, where she had oversight of a number of not-for-profit and foundation clients including Catholic Charities and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Karen is a veteran of numerous campaigns and large scale political management efforts, including the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, where she served as convention manager for public liaison, overseeing the logistics and activities of the convention's 45,000 visitors. Additionally, she managed U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich's presidential primary campaign and leadership political action committee -- Pioneer PAC. Karen continues to be called to lend her expertise in the field. In 2006, she worked as grassroots coordinator and advisor to Ron Saxton's Gubernatorial campaign in Oregon. In 2007-2008, she served as a senior advisor for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's presidential bid and continues to be politically active in her home state of Virginia. Her campaign work is recognized internationally as well. Karen frequently travels to Istanbul on behalf of the International Republican Institute to work with emerging Iraqi women leaders and serves as a mentor to women leaders in Jordan and Egypt through CLIME (Center for Liberty in the Middle East). Most recently she traveled to Albania to work with a variety of coalition groups on the topics of advocacy, leadership and organization. In recent years Karen has focused her efforts on education-related organizations. She is on the Board of the Washington Mathematics Science Technology Public Charter High School in the District of Columbia, and is an education advisory board member for BizWorld, a San Francisco-based non-profit that inspires children to be innovative leaders through the teaching of business, entrepreneurship and finance. Karen's unique political resume earned her a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communications and a speaker at the Fels Institute of Government. She is a graduate of Appalachian State University in North Carolina, where she earned a bachelor's degree in communications. She is the veteran of over a half a dozen marathons and has hiked to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.