Skylor Hearn

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Skylor Hearn currently serves as the Executive Director of the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas.  He has more than 30 years of Texas law enforcement experience.  He spent 26 years with the Texas Department of Public Safety serving as a Texas Highway Patrol Trooper, Narcotics Special Agent, and a Texas Ranger.  As a Texas Ranger and Texas Ranger Captain, he both investigated and supervised the investigation of major crimes including murders, sexual assaults, kidnappings, terroristic threats, and public corruption cases. His DPS career included stops in the Panhandle and the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso and Beaumont, and a couple of places in the middle.    

Skylor served 11 years on the DPS Director’s Staff in various roles that included oversight of the agency’s statewide infrastructure and facilities, crime laboratories, criminal justice data, and regulatory programs.  Skylor retired from DPS in 2020 as Deputy Director and remains commissioned as a Special Texas Ranger through DPS.

Skylor is also an experienced government affairs consultant in the areas of law enforcement, criminal justice, biometric technology applications, and regulated services.  He obtained a Master of Science in Criminal Justice degree from Lamar University.  Skylor completed the FBI National Academy, the PERF Senior Management Institute for Police, and previously served as an Adjunct Professor of Criminal Justice with Austin Community College.

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Nischelle Turner

Nischelle Turner

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Nischelle Turner is co-host of the eight-time Emmy Award-winning newsmagazine ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT. She joined ET as a correspondent in 2014 and was named co-host in 2021.

Turner is an award-winning journalist, having won seven Emmy Awards with ET, and often lends her voice to entertainment and political news shows, along with joining their coverage on the Grammys, Golden Globes and Oscars. She was previously a contributor for CNN where she is featured in entertainment segments on “CNN Newsroom,” “New Day” and “CNN Tonight.”  She also hosts and produces CBS’ summer hit series, “Secret Celebrity Renovation,” which began its third season in August 2023.

Turner began her journalism career in 1998 when she joined WEHT as a reporter and fill-in anchor in Evansville, Ind.  In 2000, Turner was a weekday reporter and weekend anchor for WVUE-TV FOX8 in New Orleans. After establishing a presence in news, Turner joined KTTV in Los Angeles in 2004 as a reporter on “Good Day LA” and anchor for “Good Day LA Weekend.” She returned to New Orleans a few months after leaving to cover Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath for “Good Day LA.” Her coverage of the disaster won several journalism awards.

As an avid sports fan, Turner’s passion and knowledge came in handy when she joined “Fox NFL Sunday” as a sideline reporter for national football broadcasts in 2007. She has also covered Major League Baseball and basketball for Fox. In 2009, Turner hosted “Extra on Essence,” an online entertainment show focusing on Hollywood’s most elite stars. Turner also has served as a freelance reporter and host for KNBC.

Turner attended the University of Missouri where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and broadcast news.

ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT is the #1 entertainment news show on TV with 4 million viewers a night and eight Emmy wins. On digital, ET is #1 for entertainment news video on Facebook and YouTube. ETonline.com averages 26 million monthly unique visits, and ET’s social platforms generate 1.2 billion monthly impressions and more than 352 million video views across all platforms.

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Paul Weyland

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Paul Weyland is a writer, speaker, trainer and university lecturer. He speaks to companies and organizations about how to increase sales and awareness through stronger marketing and advertising techniques. Paul delivers seminars and keynotes all over the world. He taught at the University of Texas and has worked in executive positions in media, including managing broadcast stations in Prague, Geneva and London and has authored books and many articles on sales, marketing and advertising.

His speeches are filled with humor and good, succinct information. Attendees come away from the session armed with tools they can use immediately and with a much greater understanding of how to stand out from the clutter and reach out to the people who need you the most.

Paul lives in Horseshoe Bay, Texas with his wife Nancy and his border collie Shiner.

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Brad Leland

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

As a graduate of Plano High School (with Longtime Texas Broadcaster Dan Bell) and Texas Tech – with a degree in acting and directing – Brad Leland has been in hundreds of films and TV shows for more than 40 years.

He recently returned to the stage at the Dallas Theatre Center as Scrooge in “The Christmas Carol.”

His current TV shows include the series, “The Last of Us,” “Love and Death” on HBO as well as the acclaimed films, “The Accidental Texas” and “Laroy.”

He has a wife of 47 years and two daughters.

He always says he loves his work and will never retire!

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Dan Bell

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Dan Bell’s distinguished radio broadcast career spanned thirty-six years in the industry, where he excelled as an on-air personality, in sales, and in management roles.

Dan also worked in college athletics, dedicating four years as the Assistant Athletics Director of Sales/Marketing at Southern Methodist University.

Throughout his career, Dan has been deeply involved in the broadcasting community, serving six years on the Board of Directors of the Texas Association of Broadcasters and four years on the Board of Directors of the Texas Broadcast Education Foundation, supporting scholarships for Texas students in Radio/Television and Broadcast Journalism. Dan also contributed as VP/Marketing on The Vocal Majority Board of Directors.

In 1998, Dan was honored as Associate Member of the Year by the Texas Association of Broadcasters.

Notably, Dan is the recognizable voice behind Texas Instruments’ interactive children’s teaching products Speak & Read and Speak & Math, distributed globally.

A passionate vocalist, Dan was the lead singer of the 1987 Southwestern District Quartet Champion, Class of the 80’s, and has earned nine Gold Medals with the Barbershop Harmony Society Champion chorus, The Vocal Majority.

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Wayne M. Pecena

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Wayne M. Pecena CPBE, 8-VSB, ATSC3, AMD, DRB, CBNE

Wayne M. Pecena is the Associate Director for Engineering of Educational Broadcast Services who operates public media stations KAMU-TV and KAMU-FM at Texas A&M University. Wayne has over 50 years of broadcast and IP network engineering experience and holds BS and MS degrees from Texas A&M University. Wayne is a Fellow of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE), a past President of SBE and holds the Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer (CPBE) and Certified Broadcast Network Engineer (CBNE) certifications including all specialty endorsements available. He was named the 2012 SBE Educator of the Year and the 2014 Radio World Engineer of the year. He is an author and a frequent industry speaker on IP Networking and cybersecurity topics for the broadcast and media technology professional.

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Walid Hamri

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Walid Hamri is AVP, Media Systems Engineering at Sinclair Broadcast Group, leading the technology transformation and continuous improvement for Broadcast, Cable and Digital distribution.

Prior to joining Sinclair, he served as the VP of Solutions & Business Development at ATEME and Chief Product Officer at SeaChange where he led the Product and Solution team in promoting the multi-screen Video Delivery Platform. He holds a B.S. in Electronics and Computer Science and a M.S in Image and Processing and Multimedia from Grenoble Institute of Technology (France).

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Tyler Kleinle

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Tyler Kleinle runs the YouTube channel Antenna Man which provides videos on antenna reviews, reception tips, and information about free over the air TV. Tyler has been an antenna hobbyist since the age of five and is very passionate about the broadcast TV industry. With a background in video production, he used those skills to turn his antenna hobby into a successful YouTube channel that has helped millions of people across the country cut the cord with an antenna.

Tyler the Antenna Man

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Dr. Shawn DuBravac

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Acclaimed futurist and trendcaster, Dr. Shawn DuBravac is author of the New York Times Best Seller Digital Destiny: How the New Age of Data Will Transform the Way We Work, Live, and Communicate, which explores how the world’s mass adoption of digital technologies portends the beginning of a new era for humanity in the realms of business, healthcare, finance, transportation, and culture.

DuBravac is an internationally-recognized thought leader and top-rated keynote speaker, delivering pragmatic and provocative insights on the trends, technologies, and paradigms transforming the globe. His research focuses on the forces shaping tomorrow that are percolating on the periphery of society and business today. By providing an elevated view of developing trends, DuBravac empowers leaders and their organizations to improve strategic decision-making capabilities by understanding the changing landscape and identifying the opportunities that lie ahead.

DuBravac is president of Avrio Institute. Borrowing from the Greek Αύριο meaning tomorrow, the Institute helps leaders prepare for uncertain and divergent futures. Clients include Fortune 100 and Global 1000 companies, scrappy start-ups, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. Grounded in economics, DuBravac served over 12 years as chief economist for the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer tech companies, and owner and producer of CES.

DuBravac writes extensively on disruptive technological shifts and has been widely published on the topics of technology, finance, and economics. His analysis has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Wired, Los Angeles Times, Barron’s and on-air with CNBC, Bloomberg, NPR, CBS, and other media outlets.

DuBravac has been named one of the top 50 futurist speakers to have at your conference by Readwrite, one of 27 finance thought leaders to read and follow by Prophix, and to Dealerscope’s “40 under 40” list of people to watch in the technology industry. He is a past-President of both the CFA Society of Washington, DC and the Conference of Business Economists, a founding trustee of the CTA Foundation, and a past board member of the National Association of Business Economists.

DuBravac has taught at the George Washington University School of Business, American University’s Kogod School of Business, the George Mason University School of Business, Marymount University School of Business, and the University of Mary Washington. He holds economic degrees from Brigham Young University and George Mason University. DuBravac resides in Virginia with his wife and three sons.

When he’s not helping executive teams decipher coming shifts, he can be found climbing 14ers, running marathons, and coaching youth sports.

DuBravac shares his insights and ideas at ShawnDuBravac.com, and on Twitter and Instagram at @shawndubravac.

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Shaun Dolan

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Shaun is a Partner at Inrush Broadcast Services, which provides consulting, integration, and maintenance solutions to media creators. He focuses on delivering the benefits of software-based infrastructure while incorporating tried-and-true broadcast technology. The Inrush team has completed studio, transmitter, and cloud projects for broadcasters of all sizes, from rural independent operators to 4 of the 5 highest-billing radio stations in the US.

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