Dr. Garcia (Story Concept) was born in Cuba, and immigrated to the US in 1980 as part of the Mariel Boatlift. Dr. Garcia earned a degree in Political Science with minors in Social Studies and Spanish from Montclair State University, a Masters in Latin American Literature in 1991, and a PhD in Latin American literature with a concentration in US Latino Literature in 1999, from the University of Arizona. His dissertation, titled La Literatura Cubanoamericana y Su Imagen, was published in 2004 in a book of the same title and dealt with transculturation and the Cuban American experience in the U.S. In the fall of 1999, Dr. Garcia began working as an assistant professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. In 2002, he became department chair of the Modern Languages department and in 2006 he was promoted to associate professor. At FSC, Dr. Garcia has directed the popular Study Abroad program in Spain and created and implemented FSC’s first Latin American Studies minor as well as other courses in Latin American Studies and film. Recently, Dr. Garcia has presented his academic research at international conferences and published various articles and two books on the Cuban and Cuban-American experience in the US. In the spring of 2009, he was granted a sabbatical to write an oral history of the Mariel Boatlift to be published at the end of 2010.
Jim Carleton (Director) graduated Magna Cum Laude from Liberty University, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics, and a minor in Communications. Over the past ten years as a managing partner of NFocus Visual Communications he has produced, directed, and edited a number of national and international media projects. These include feature length and short narratives, documentaries, broadcast, commercial work, stories of humanitarian efforts, and live-event production. Most recently, he produced and edited two award winning shorts Blackwater Elegy (2003), Wait (2007), and feature film Endure (2010).
Rob Tritton (Producer) has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from the University of Central Oklahoma. He has been a producer at NFocus for seventeen years also serving as its chief operating officer. In this capacity, Rob gives oversight to projecting, scheduling, and managing all aspects of production. As Producer of the recent feature film, Endure (2010), he was responsible for securing the $1.4 million budget through equity investments, financing and state incentives.
Jesse Larson (Producer) is a recent graduate of Florida Southern College with a B.A. in Public Relations. He began working as a production assistant in high school on live events, short films, and commercials. Most recently, Jesse was an associate producer on Endure (2010).
Adriana Bosch (Senior Producer – Cuban Consultant) now an independent filmmaker based in Miami, was for twenty years a producer, writer, and director at PBS - WGBH. Her two-hour special Fidel Castro aired in January 2005 and was honored with a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival and was nominated for the Writer’s Guild Award. She was producer, writer and director of Jimmy Carter, a three-hour documentary biography for American Experience that aired on PBS in November of 2002. She was series editor and producer/writer for American Experience’s presidential biographies Reagan (1998) and Ike (1993), and for biographies on The Rockefellers, Ulyses S. Grant and Winston Churchill. She has won a Christopher Award, a Peabody Award, an Erik Barnouw Award and an Emmy Award. Bosch, who was born in Cuba, holds a PhD in International Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Her latest film, The Great Fever for American Experience, aired in November 2006. She has recently completed a one-hour documentary, Divas and Superstars, the fourth episode of the WGBH-BBC series Latin Music USA, for which she was also Senior Producer.
Veronica Montali (Associate Producer – Peruvian Consultant) is a multicultural media executive experienced in marketing, communications, and TV and film production. She has spearheaded several TV projects for companies in the US and Latin America. She has served in key posts at Discovery Networks Latin America/Iberia, being responsible for supervising original productions and contracts with U.S., Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese programming vendors. During her tenure as Director of Programming and Production for Discovery Health Channel, Veronica served as Executive Producer for the groundbreaking series Living Pulse (Planeta Médico) a 26 episode TV series documenting the lives of those affected by medical breakthroughs shot on-location in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Prior to joining Discovery Networks in Miami, Veronica was based in Connecticut where she developed trilingual sponsored interstitials showcasing Latin America’s finest sportsmen and women for ESPN International. Born in Peru, she began her television career as a news reporter/producer at local station Canal 9. She came to the US as a Fulbright graduate student in 1987 and holds an MS degree in Television from the Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University.
