Christopher Miller has served as Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) President since 1996. He is an attorney with a background in environmental and transportation policy. Chris is responsible for overall management and strategic planning for PEC, including the land conservation program, land use policy, smart growth and transportation policies. He is also the current President of the Virginia Conservation Network and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

Chris coordinated the Piedmont Environmental Councils successful campaign that challenged Disney's America development proposal. Prior to joining PEC, he was Assistant Director for Federal Affairs at the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a national non-profit transportation organization based in Washington, D.C. He also worked for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Environmental Law Institute, and the American Council on U.S./Soviet Relations.

Joel Kotkin is a Senior Fellow with both Pepperdine University's Davenport Institute for Public Policy and the Milken Institute. He is also Research Fellow in urban policy at the Reason Public Policy Institute. He serves as director of content for Prime Ventures LLP, a venture capital partnership specializing in new media ventures.

Joel is a columnist for the Sunday New York Times, the Los Angeles Business Journal; and he is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, where he is a contributing editor to the Opinion Section. For five years he served as West Coast editor for Inc. Magazine and contributes regularly.

He is the author of numerous books including TRIBES: How Race Religion and Identity Determine Success In the New Global Economy (Random House, 1993), and THE NEW GEOGRAPHY: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape (Random House 2000).