About the Speakers
Major General Scott Gray, USAF, (Ret) has held numerous staff positions at the numbered air force, major command, Air Staff, Secretary of the Air Force and Joint Chiefs of Staff levels, and has commanded in support and operational organizations. The general’s operational commands include tactical, strategic airlift and air refueling organizations. General Gray also commanded the 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews AFB, Md., overseeing worldwide special airlift, logistics and communications support for the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and other senior leaders of the United States. Awarded his wings in 1978, General Gray is a command pilot with more than 3,500 flying hours in the C-130E/H, EC-130, C-5, KC-135R, C-32 and C-17. After retiring from the USAF Scott worked for Lockheed Martin Aero, serving as the Director Business Development, VP F-22 Sustainment and finally as the VP Global Sustainment. Today he is the President and CEO of the Combat Wounded Veterans Challenge, on the Board of The Flag and General Officers Network, President of the Florida West Coast Chapter of the Air Force Association, and Chairman of the SAM Fox Association.
Robert Gary is a former trial attorney in the Organized Crime Section of the United States Department of Justice. He was the Deputy Chief and Acting Chief of the US Justice Department Cleveland Strike Force. He was a Special Assistant United States Attorney. He served as Director of the Ohio Organized Crime Prevention Council and as a Special Assistant on Criminal Justice to the Governor of Ohio as well as an Assistant County Prosecutor. In these capacities ,he was responsible for the supervision of major federal investigations into Teamster corruption conducting federal grand juries and the trial and prosecution of criminal cases in the United States Federal Courts.
As a private attorney he was appointed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to represent Muslim prisoners confined in the Federal Courts in that district. His expert in that litigation subsequently turned out to be a terrorist and a coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. As a result of that experience and 911, he began the study of the Quran . He has traveled throughout the Muslim world meeting with religious scholars in Iran ,UAE,Turkey Qatar,Bahrain and beyond He has lectured for several years on the geopolitics of Islam and world terrorism at the Osher Lifetime Learning Institute and has been a frequent lecturer on The Crystal Cruise Line. He has also been a frequent lecturer at the Longboat Key Education Center and OLLI on the House and Senate impeachment hearings and related matters. He was the managing partner of Gary, Naegele and Theado which is a class action firm.
He has a JD from Case Western Reserve Law School and an LLM in Criminal Justice from the New York University School of Law.
Lucie Lapovsky is an economist who consults, writes, and speaks widely on issues related to higher education finance and governance. She served as President of Mercy College, a multi – campus institution of 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students with campuses in New York City, Westchester and on-line and as Vice President for Finance/CFO at Goucher College in Baltimore among other positions.
She is the co-editor of three books, the author of more than 200 chapters and articles and is a frequent contributor to Forbes. She serves on several local and national boards including the Longboat Key Democratic Club, Suncoast International Women’s Forum (chair), the American Public University System, the Education Foundation of Sarasota (Treasurer), the Asolo Theatre, and the Tuition Exchange (Treasurer).
She received her B.A. degree from Goucher College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park. Among her many honors, she was the recipient of the Donna Shavlik award from the American Council on Education for Advancing Women’s Leadership in Higher Education in 2016; she was named one of the top 100 women in Maryland in 1999 by the Daily Record and she received the Alumni Award of Honor from Packer Collegiate Institute in NY in 2009.
Lynn Larson began her career as a Registered Nurse working in various states and specialties. Her next adventure was Rehab Nursing for a large insurance company. Lynn continued progressing in insurance management positions and then in Florida state government in insurance regulation as bureau chief, risk management director, and eventually setting up a new insurance program for the state of Florida to help with the state’s medical malpractice insurance crisis for physicians. After moving to Longboat Key, Lynn earned her Florida Supreme Court Certification as a mediator for family, county and circuit cases. Lynn was elected and served as a Longboat Key Town Commissioner form 2009 to 2016. She earned her MS in Organizational Behavior from the University of Hartford. She has served in many volunteer activities and listing a few, the Red Cross after many hurricanes, Longboat Key Finance Committee, President of her homeowners association, and a Republican Precinct Committeeman.