NeoCon Xpress Speakers Announced

If you'll be in LA this August 22 & 23 and are checking out NeoCon Xpress, be sure to sit in on one -or all - of the speaking sessions. Here's the rundown, just announced...

The first-ever NeoCon®  Xpress L.A., the West-coast architecture, design and facility management community’s premier opportunity to see hundreds of hot new products fresh from the NeoCon World’s Trade Fair, will feature top-name presenters when the show makes its debut at The Los Angeles Convention Center, August 22-23, 2007.

In addition to featuring all the hottest new products and trends from hundreds of manufacturers, NeoCon Xpress will showcase presentations from the industry’s top visionaries.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Angela Adams, angela adams Designs, LLC.   “Bringing Comfort to Contract”
Wednesday, August 22, Noon
Angela Adams is the CEO and Creative Director for angela adams Designs, LLC. Growing up on an island twelve miles off the coast of Maine, Ms. Adam’s island upbringing helped to shape her unique perspective on design. Her designs are known for their sense of timelessness, simplicity and balance. She is constantly exploring new mediums for her designs. Her contract industry work includes partnerships with Shaw Contract Group, Architex and Ann Sacks include broadloom & carpet tile, woven fabrics and ceramic tiles. Angela will discuss translating the aesthetic of her designs and the Angela Adams brand into contract environments.

Cameron Sinclair, Architecture for Humanity, “We Don’t Ship: How Community Design Delivers More Than Architecture”
Thursday, August 23, Noon
Cameron Sinclair is the co-founder and executive director of Architecture for Humanity, a charitable organization which promotes architecture and design solutions to humanitarian crises and provides design services to communities in need. Trained as an architect, Mr. Sinclair also developed an interest in social, cultural and humanitarian design. Named one of the seven people changing the world, by Fortune Magazine, Mr. Sinclair also is an adjunct professor at the Montana State School of Architecture and the author of Design Like You Give a Damn. Cameron"robert kennwill discuss how a new breed of designers is responding to humanitarian crises and rethinking the social and economic future of the more than two billion people currently surviving in sub-standard living conditions.

FEATURED PRESENTATIONS
Jack Kyser, City of Los Angeles “Reinventing Los Angeles – Downtown and Elsewhere”
Thursday, August 23, 9 a.m. Breakfast, 9:30 a.m. Presentation
Jack Kyser, the Chief Economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), is known as the “guru of the Los Angeles economy.” Kyser is responsible for interpreting and forecasting economic trends in the Los Angeles five-county area, and for analyzing the major industries of the area. Kyser serves on the Economic Policy Council of the California Institute, the research and policy arm of the California Congressional Delegation. Hear about the revitalization of downtown L.A. and learn how these new developments will enrich the future of Los Angeles as it works to redefine its skyline. 

Debra Ertel-Hernandez, “Making the Business Case for Sustainability at Toyota”
Wednesday, August 22, 4 pm
Debra Ertel-Hernandez CFM, CFMJ, FMA, is the senior facilities operations administrator for Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. Corporate sustainability is more than simply recycled content and the recyclability of products.  It is a business approach that creates long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks deriving from economic environmental and social developments.
Autos and the environment meet at every life cycle stage.  We will take a close up look at Toyota Motor Sales’ Business Case for Sustainability and their Global Earth Charter moving forward in the 21st Century and explore why the initiatives of major corporations like Toyota are becoming a major focus of the design industry.

SPECIAL EVENTS
Robert Kennedy Jr., Environmentalist “A Contract With Our Future”
Thursday, August 23, 8 a.m. Breakfast, 8:30 a.m. Presentation
The Southern California Chapter of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) will host the 2007 Catalyst: Ideas for Breakfast event at the Los  Angeles Convention Center. Renowned environmentalist  , will discuss the important role that our natural surroundings play in our work, our health, and our identity as Americans.  Mr. Kennedy will eloquently explain how good environmental policy is good business policy, good economic policy, and good policy for posterity.
Tickets for the Catalyst Breakfast are available July 1 at iida-socal.org.

Shawn Littrell, Designer
Thursday, August 23, 9 a.m.
Student Series at NeoCon Xpress L.A. will offer students of design and architecture an incredible opportunity to learn from the award-winning industrial designer, Shawn Littrell, who will speak to students about his projects, as well as making the transition from the classroom to the office. Littrell will also have an area on the show floor featuring various spatial projects and furniture exhibited at the Salon del Mobile in Milan.