Ross Szabo is the Director of Youth Outreach for the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign, a speaker for CAMPUSPEAK and co-author of Behind Happy Faces; Taking Charge of Your Mental Health. During the past 5 years, Ross is the only person in the country who has spoken to over 700,000 young people about mental health issues. He has been featured in Parade and Seventeen magazines, appeared on CNN, MTV and CBS and had his presentation turned into a television program for PBS. His inspirational, emotional and humorous personal story about bipolar disorder has provided a positive example for tens of thousands of young people and encouraged them to seek the help they need.

 

Buck Cooke is the Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Greek Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to earning his Master of Science degree in Higher Education Administration from The Florida State University, Buck completed 18 hours of graduate course work in counseling and development at his undergraduate alma mater, Winthrop University. During his time at Tech, Buck has had to deal with the deaths of several students who were members of fraternities and sororities, including one suicide. During these trying times, Buck was able to make use of his background in counseling and his personal experiences in dealing with the suicide of two friends from college, one a former roommate and the other a fraternity brother.