When Headline News (HLN) was looking for analysis on the Conrad Murray Trial, they called on attorney and policy advisor Michael C. Barnes, ’96. Murray, Michael Jackson’s personal physician, was accused and convicted of involuntary manslaughter when the pop star died of acute propofol intoxication under his care.

Because of his previous work in drug policy, Barnes was tapped by HLN to provide commentary on the infamous case after producers had seen some of his clips providing analysis on other issues.

“I started [out] doing radio interviews for clients. Then producers and bookers would contact me to talk on other topics,” Barnes said of his media analysis experience.

Prior to establishing his law firm — DCBA Law & Policy in Arlington, Va. — in 2004, Barnes served as confidential counsel in the White House Drug Policy Office, where he provided executive direction on policies aimed at reducing substance abuse. This experience combined with a law degree made him a perfect candidate to give analysis on the Conrad Murray Trial.

During the week — in a Los Angeles studio that CNN and HLN had created solely for the Murray case — he spent roughly four hours a day watching the trial via television feed and then, during breaks in the trial, would give analysis on what had just taken place.

“I approached it from a purely legal perspective and looked solely at the facts in the case,” he said. “In that regard, I was one of the lone voices saying during the analysis of this trial that the facts of the case did not show that Michael Jackson was necessarily an addict.”

Barnes said he thought the trial and testimonies did a good job of showing that Jackson was dependent on anxiety medication and that he needed better insomnia treatment.

“I wanted for the media coverage of the case to be consistent with the facts of the case and not with preconceived notions about the victim,” he said.

Barnes’ analysis proved to be popular. He was featured on HLN’s “Showbiz Tonight.” He also spent time at the CNN Washington, D.C., studio and flew up to New York to do a few programs including “Piers Morgan Tonight.”

With a bright future in televised analysis, Barnes says he would be happy to continue providing commentary for trials as long as they are covered based on the facts and not on the drama or intrigue associated with them.

“I want to focus on issues,” he said. “I want to focus on making a difference.”

Barnes graduated summa cum laude from Flagler with a B.A. in communication. He went on to La Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for his master’s degree and George Mason University School of Law, where he obtained his Juris Doctor degree.

If you’ve seen an ESPN Film or spent a Sunday night catching up on MTV’s “True Life” series, chances are Andrew Armstrong Rogers, ’07, helped put it together. Rogers is post-production supervisor at Triple Threat TV, a Connecticut-based production company specializing in nonfiction entertainment.

Rogers moved to New York City after graduating from Flagler with a communication degree in the broadcast track. He completed internships at Engel Entertainment and worked for documentary filmmaker, Ric Burns.

In September 2007, he got an internship with Triple Threat TV – then located in Harlem — and was hired on full-time a month later.

The first project Rogers worked on at Triple Threat was a series of eight biographies including pieces on ‘N Sync, Justin Timberlake, The Mickey Mouse Club and Jack Black, among others. He was also put in charge of maintaining the company’s website — skills he attributes to the graphic design courses he took at Flagler.

As post-production supervisor for Triple Threat, Rogers puts in a lot of late nights. His responsibility is to “make sure that the technology doesn’t get in the way of creating.” This means that Rogers is in charge of finishing each project the company produces.

Take, for example, a documentary they produced called “Thumbs,” which aired on MTV. The film follows the texting lives and habits of six teens from across the country. It’s an investigative look at the elaborate world of teenage texters and the integral role mobile phones have come to play in day-to-day communication.

“Initially, we asked ourselves, ‘Do we make a documentary asking if it’s OK for these kids to be texting this much?’ ” he said. Instead, the team chose to highlight the teens getting ready for a marathon race to the 2010 LG National Texting Championship in New York City.

“We had a cool mix of characters,” Rogers said of the teens they chose. “They are all really good kids deep down, and the viewer finds a way to care about each one.”

During the National Texting Championship, Rogers’ job was to sit in a room and wait for all of the cameramen to bring him their footage, then he would dump the footage onto his computer, back it up and organize it. “With on-the-fly interviews like we were doing, it can produce hours and hours of tape,” he said.

Since “Thumbs,” the Triple Threat team has been working on an array of productions including “Catching Hell” for ESPN Films, “True Life: I’m Addicted To Caffeine” for MTV, “The Real Rocky” for ESPN Films, “Small Potatoes: Who Killed The USFL” for ESPN’s “30 for 30,” and “Right To Play” for ESPN Films.

When Rogers worked on “The Flintlock Disaster” for PBS, a documentary about the fateful flight taken by Marine Fighting Squadron VMF-422 during WWII in the Pacific Ocean, he discovered his favorite part of working in filmmaking.

“The best part is getting a hold of all of this material – never before seen photos and film – and digitizing it,” Rogers said. “A lot of this material has never been backed up and is deteriorating every day. I get to help maintain memories.”

After graduating from Flagler in 1984, Dvorak spent more than two decades working corporate jobs in sales and marketing for technology companies. He loved the stability, but it wasn’t his passion.

“It was scary to cut the chord,” Dvorak said of quitting his corporate position at IBM. “But you have to suit up and show up and make it happen.”

Dvorak’s true passion is public speaking and improvisational comedy. He had spent years honing these hobbies – attending the prestigious Second City, a sketch comedy and improv theatre and training center in Chicago – as well as giving hundreds of pro bono motivational speeches at local clubs, organizations and businesses.

While Dvorak was at Second City, he developed an alter ego of sorts named Dr. Earnest Carpediem – a spoof on life coach and motivational speaker Anthony Robbins. The character was a hit among his fellow improv actors and audiences. When Dvorak decided to become a professional motivational speaker, he thought his Carpediem persona was a great way to add a little humor.

Dressed in a blue button-down shirt, black slacks, a bowtie, red suspenders – with plenty of flair – ­and nerdy glasses, Dr. Earnest Carpediem doesn’t seem like the kind of guy a Fortune 500 company would hire to be their keynote speaker. Yet everyone from Marriott Hotels & Resorts to Merrill Lynch to Swissport Cargo Services has extended the invite.

Dvorak has traveled around the globe to places like China, South Africa, Malaysia, Turkey and Russia to deliver his comedic, creative and motivational message. Dvorak’s audience ranges from dozens to thousands, and he’s run the gamut from pest control operators to orthodontists to investment bankers. He even had a recent gig at the World Adult Kickball Association.

Dvorak says the length of keynote speeches can be a challenge.

“You’re up there in front of all of these people and you’ve got to keep them entertained and not lose the vibe,” he said.

Over the past nine years as a professional speaker, Dvorak has offered his clients a list of programs like “Mega Motivation With A Twist,” “Laughter is the Best Medicine,” “The Art of Being Creative” and “Selling Up in Tough Times.” One of his favorite phrases is, “The power of laughter and humor can bring true employee and customer loyalty.”

Dvorak says it was the special attention he received at Flagler that led him to turn his hobby into a career.

“There was always that little extra TLC,” he said.

In fact, when Dvorak came to visit Flagler College in the early 1980s from his native Chicago, there was no such thing as a sales degree. Actually, only a few colleges or universities in the entire country offered one. During Dvorak’s admissions interview, the counselor suggested that he do an independent study and design his own major. The mixture — a hodgepodge of acting classes, public speaking, and sales and marketing — worked.

But he’s quick to recall his favorite professor, Theatre Arts Department Chair Phyllis Gibbs’s sound advice: “She would always tell us this great Shakespeare quote, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ ”

For more, go to www.dougdvorak.com.

When Theresa Segal, ‘87, was a little girl, her family would drive down to St. Augustine for a month during the summer to stay at her grandparent’s house on Davis Shores, a historic, waterfront neighborhood just over the Bridge of Lions.

“When we drove over the grating of the bridge, I would wake up and I knew that we were almost there,” Segal remembers.

It’s fitting that Segal’s earliest memories of St. Augustine, the town where she was born, is of the Bridge of Lions, a Mediterranean-style bascule drawbridge opened in 1927. In October 2010, Segal was one of just a few people presented with an Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for advocacy to rehabilitate the bridge. When people were pushing to replace the bridge with a new, larger structure, Segal became instrumental in preserving the quarter-mile span.

In 1996, Segal read a headline in the local paper that the Florida Department of Transportation and the U.S. Coast Guard were lobbying to do away with the iconic bridge and its tile-roofed towers, graceful arches, decorative lampposts, ornate metalwork and two large, marble lions.

“Everyone was just swinging the pendulum back and forth,” she said of a battle that had actually started a few decades earlier. “I knew I needed to get involved.”

So Segal approached a grassroots group already formed that was in dire need of some new blood. They reformed, called themselves the “Save Our Bridge Committee” and named Segal president. “I wasn’t even at the meeting when they appointed me to the position,” she said with a laugh.

Throughout the late ‘90s, Segal and the rest of the Save Our Bridge crew fought to save one of the most distinctive architectural elements of St. Augustine. They petitioned the National Trust for Historic Preservation to include the bridge on their list of the “11 Most Endangered Historic Sites” – giving it federal protection – and won. The group also made multiple trips to Tallahassee to meet with state officials, circulated fact sheets, had residents and supporters sign petitions and held fundraisers at the local St. Augustine Art Association.

On Sept. 2, 1999, the FDOT announced its decision to support rehabilitation.

“It seemed like such a huge mountain to climb,” she said. “And now the real work was going to begin.”

In early 2005, construction started on building a temporary bridge next to the Bridge of Lions, and a year-and-a-half later the real work began on what was a five-year project.

With much fanfare, the newly rehabilitated Bridge of Lions opened to traffic on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2010 – a remarkable coincidence for a bridge that’s been painted green for more than 80 years.

Segal remembers the day of the opening with few words: “Oh, I smiled,” she said. “I smiled a lot.”

Nearly a year later, the marble lions named “Firm” and “Faithful” returned to their home on the foot of the bridge. They had been in storage for more than six years, restored by none other than Segal’s husband, Joe Segal, ‘88, and former Flagler College art professor Enzo Torcoletti.

The only thing that Segal misses about the original bridge is that the new one doesn’t have metal grating. “I really miss hearing that noise when I drive over it.”

When Troy Blevins took a job with St. Johns County Recreation and Parks, he never thought it would lead to hobnobbing with big time celebrities like Ringo Starr, Aretha Franklin and Toby Keith. Blevins, ‘89, just wanted to help the county by creating youth sports programs.

“I figured I’d be in the gym and be ‘Coach Troy’ for the rest of my life,” the 43-year-old admits. “I didn’t think I’d be the guy in charge of 43 miles of beaches, 4,500 acres of parks and all of the boat ramps. And I definitely didn’t think I’d be running a concert venue.”

A few years ago, Blevins was named Director of St. Johns County Recreation and Parks, putting him in charge of nine departments including the Cultural Events Division, which oversees the St. Augustine Amphitheatre — one of the top outdoor venues in the country.

But it wasn’t always celebs and accolades. Blevins spent years getting to that point. He got his start at Flagler College. Born and bred an hour south in DeLand, he came to the Oldest City in 1987 to play baseball for the Saints and pursue a degree in recreation management.

Just before graduation, a man named Leon Shimer came to speak in one of his classes. He was so impressed by the senior that he asked him to interview for a county position. “I gave him my resume and I pretty much had the job that day,” Blevins remembers. “I started working with the county just a few weeks after graduation.”

Over the past three decades, Blevins has worn numerous hats. He’s hosted national softball tournaments, created successful after-school and summer programs, constructed parks and coached thousands of kids throughout St. Johns County.

He was named director in 2006, just a few months before the county started looking at how to manage the newly revamped outdoor amphitheatre. “When they decided to keep it in-house,” Blevins said, “no one else had really done any major events.”

Blevins’ experience with national softball tournaments and other sporting events helped prepare him for the new gig. But hosting big name musical acts and cultural events quickly proved itself a horse of a different color. So the county hired General Manager Ryan Dettra, himself a 2000 alumnus, and nearly a half-dozen other Flagler alumni to run the 4,100-seat venue.

In October of 2007, Little Richard was the first big show promoted by the amphitheatre staff. People were excited, but apprehensive that the venue would have a shelf life. Blevins and crew didn’t disappoint.

Over the past three years, they’ve brought legends like James Taylor and the Steve Miller Band, indie acts like The Decemberists and My Morning Jacket, and family-friendly events like the Golden Dragon Acrobats, the Saturday Farmers Market and Winter Wonderland — complete with an ice skating rink and nightly snow.

The amphitheatre has surpassed every expectation. It’s consistently ranked in the top five for best outdoor venue by Pollstar Magazine with more than 70,000 tickets sold and a total industry impact of $8.1 million. Blevins and his crew are working to make it No. 1.

Design-heavy street art with grit and detail is how 22-year-old Hahau Yisrael defines his work.

Yisrael, a graphic design major and advertising minor graduating this spring, doesn’t speak about art the way many have been taught. He understands the importance of balance and perspective, but uses them on his own terms. He doesn’t stick to a particular medium – combining coffee grounds, spray paint, ink, charcoal, henna and acrylics.

And he uses whatever he can get his hands on as a canvas: surfboards, skateboards, tile, wood and T-shirts.

Born in New York City and raised in Jacksonville, Yisrael says his life as an artist began in a unique way. “It’s when my older brother taught me about graffiti,” he said. The genre has since influenced every aspect of Yisrael’s work.

Though he turned his art in another direction when he came to college — “too much at stake,” he admits of the often illegal art form — Yisrael still uses many of the same principles of texture, layering and an unconventional, bold illustrative style. One of his main influences is Jose Parla, a Cuban-American, multi-faceted street artist who utilizes calligraphy, script and heavy textures in his work.

Most street graffiti portrays a message, whether it be political, social or territorial, and Yisrael chose graphic design for the same sentiment. “I’m into the heavy conceptual aspect,” he said of branding, typography and advertising.

With graduation looming, Yisrael’s been thinking a lot about his future. “I can’t see myself doing anything else,” he said of combining art with graphic design. Although he moved from New York at the age of 1, Yisrael still hopes to find himself in the Big Apple, working for a design firm or ultimately opening his own.

“I’m a little bit intimidated by the city,” he said. “It seems like something to work up to. For now, I’ll just go with the flow.”

So he is concentrating on the present and just focusing on surviving his senior portfolio class. “Flagler has put me in some great situations and really shaped me as an artist … I probably wouldn’t have been as nurtured had I not gone here,” he said. “I’ve met some amazing people, in and out of school, and I’m always asked to push myself and never settle for less.”

The early 1990s was no time to break into the world of investment banking. That’s the way Cinda Sherman remembers it. She had just lost her job as a financial analyst in Jacksonville, Fla.; the market was tanking; and all around her, banks and brokerages weren’t hiring, but instead laying off workers.

Things got so bad that when a few friends offered her a basement to live in until she got back on her feet, she took it.

“It was literally concrete floors — no bathroom,” she said. “I had to go in with candlelight.”

It was during that down-and-out period that the ’86 grad hatched a plan that must have sounded crazy to some: launching an arts and culture magazine in a Florida market that was practically void of the material she wanted to cover.

But the business major with a love for the arts went ahead, founding her “Arbus” magazine in 1995. Today, the arts and business publication has grown with Jacksonville’s blooming arts community and counts as many as 100,000 readers an issue.

To top it off, two years ago Sherman won the Women in Business award from the Women Business Owners of North Florida. She won primarily because she had started the magazine without any money, help or knowledge of the publishing business.

“I about fell out of my seat when they called my name,” she said. “It was really quite an honor to be recognized after all those years of hard work.”

Sherman grew up in an artistic family. Her father, Michael, was a Flamenco guitar player and an associate professor of sociology at Flagler. She crafted her own appreciation for the arts into her concept for “Arbus,” which also partly stemmed from her own experiences with the few galleries that did exist in Jacksonville. She found them intimidating and a bit elitist. As a student at Flagler, she visited a gallery where a woman followed her throughout the gallery, peering over her shoulder the entire time.

“I just remember how much I hated it,” she said, “and I swore that I would never try to have the magazine come across that way — as though you were being looked down upon.”

Sherman said the magazine struggled for three or four years before really taking off.

“It took a long time for ‘Arbus’ to kind of get its own skin and create itself,” she said. “I’ve tried to let the community and the magazine create itself based on what people are looking for and what they are interested in.”

When the magazine first started out, Sherman said there were a lot of naysayers. Some even told her that it wouldn’t make it more than two years. This only made her work harder to make it succeed.

She believes the magazine fits well with the thriving arts and cultural scene across the First Coast, which she says now attracts people to the city and “gives it a heart and a soul.”

Sherman attributes her education at Flagler with the idea for “Arbus.”

“If I didn’t have that liberal arts background — that love for studying art and then the business side of it — I don’t think this would have ever come about,” she said. “It was the catalyst when I was looking for a way to get out of that hole or that basement, if you will. I hope one day to be able to have a legacy that I can leave behind with the magazine.”

Visit Arbus online at www.arbus.com.
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But that’s exactly what Amy Waers (‘06) has been doing while working as an assistant buyer in Wal-Mart Stores’ stationery department, a position that has her traveling overseas to China on buying trips.

“I actually got it [the position] through SIFE,” Waers said about Students in Free Enterprise, the entrepreneurial organization that has a chapter at Flagler. “We were at the national competition my junior year presenting, and I was recruited after one of our presentations by the senior vice president.”

Waers accepted the position and, upon graduation, moved to Bentonville, Ark., where the corporate office is located.

A highlight of her job has been the three trips she’s taken to China to buy stationery products. Waers said the location of her travels is based on which products she is responsible for purchasing and where they are made. Products like copy paper, envelopes and photo paper are predominantly manufactured in Asia.

Waers said she has embraced the many cultural differences she’s found between China and the United States.
“[The differences] became very real to me the first time I went over there,” she said. “It was like, ‘Whoa, yeah.’ … I absolutely love it.”

Waers said the business world is becoming a much smaller place. “Especially the way the economy is today,” she said. “It’s just becoming more and more global.”

China has topped headlines lately with products like food and toys being recalled for poor quality standards, and that fact isn’t lost on Waers, who says quality is critical.

“It’s one of the hardest things about importing products — the quality control issue — because in China they have different standards than we have in the U.S.,” she said. “So, it’s just really making sure that we communicate our standards and that the factories and the companies that we’re working with overseas understand how important it is to us.”