Richie Arpino

Richie Arpino has owned Richie Arpino Salon in Buckhead for 31 years! His accomplishments in the beauty business are great – from his amazingly loyal clients, to the long list of celebrities with whom he has worked, all have known Richie as the light of their day. There are not too many business owners who can boast a staff with over 150 years of service between them. In his spare time, Richie has made a name for himself as a photographer. He has shot covers and editorials for both local and national publications as well as publicity shots and CD covers for Collective Soul, Bill Gentry, Diana DiGarmo, Ben Deignen, and High Tide Blues. Richie's great passion to give back to the community is represented in the five calendars he has produced of his original photography, donating the proceeds to local Breast Cancer and AIDS Charities. He has just released his most recent work, a coffee table book entitled MEN IN BLACK AND WHITE. He will donate the proceeds to Breast Friends in honor of his sister-in-law Janie Arpino, who lost her fight with breast cancer three years ago. Richie was one of the co-founders of Urban Chic a fund raiser for AID Atlanta, and has worked with EDEN, DIFFA, Hero for Children, and The Chelko Foundation.

Ofelia de La Valette

Ofelia is the Founding Owner and Director of one of the most celebrated and prominent dance studios in the United States: Dance 101. Singularly the largest studio of it's kind, Dance 101, with it's 100+ weekly classes and a faculty roster of 38 gifted teachers, has changed landscape of dance locally and nationally in the 6 short years of it's existence. The subject of numerous magazine articles, television spots and webisodes, Ofelia's career and dance exploits have appeared on CNN Small Business Success Stories, MSNBC's Fit to Boom Webisode, Southern Living Magazine, Dance Magazine, Atlanta Woman Magazine as well as the AJC, Creative Loafing, The Sunday Paper, Piedmont Review and Atlanta Intown. Her visionary leadership in all things dance continues to impact many people's lives and careers, having created an outlet for physical artistic expression in Atlanta unlike any that existed before.

E. Vincent Martinez

In June of 2009, E. Vincent Martinez launched fashionado.net. The fashion inspired website has grown to include celebrity interviews, movie reviews, travel and entertainment. Fashionado also follows Martinez through all of his adventures and fabulous parties. In 2010, fashionado was named Best Fashion Blog by the Atlanta Fashion Awards and Martinez also made a prestigious list of the Top 100 Fashion Bloggers Worldwide by Sparkah, a marketing firm in New York City.

The acclaimed Doggies on the Catwalk and the UrbanCouture fashion design program at Grady High School are all products of E. Vincent Martinez.