M. Joseph Sirgy is a management psychologist (Ph.D., U/Massachusetts, 1979), Professor of Marketing, and Virginia Real Estate Research Fellow at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has published extensively in the area of marketing, business ethics, and quality of life (QOL). He is the author/editor of many books related to consumer marketing and quality of life. He co-founded the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) in 1995, served as its Executive Director/Treasurer from 1995 to 2011, and as Development Director (2011-12). In 1998, he received the Distinguished Fellow Award from ISQOLS. In 2003, ISQOLS honored him as the Distinguished QOL Researcher for research excellence and a record of lifetime achievement in QOL research. He also served as President of the Academy of Marketing Science from which he received the Distinguished Fellow Award in the early 1990s and the Harold Berkman Service Award in 2007 (lifetime achievement award for serving the marketing professoriate).
In the early 2000s, he helped co-found the Macromarketing Society and the Community Indicators Consortium and has served as a board member of these two professional associations. He co-founded the journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life, the official journal of the ISQOLS, in 2005; and he has served as editor (1995-present). He also served as editor of the QOL section in the Journal of Macromarketing (1995-present). He received the Virginia Tech’s Pamplin Teaching Excellence Award/Holtzman Outstanding Educator Award and University Certificate of Teaching Excellence in 2008.
In 2010, ISQOLS honored him for excellence and lifetime service to the society. In 2010 he won the Best Paper Award in the Journal of Happiness Studies for his theory of the balanced life; in 2011 he also won the Best Paper Award in the Journal of Travel Research for his goal theory of leisure travel satisfaction. In 2012 he was awarded the EuroMed Management Research Award for outstanding achievements and groundbreaking contributions to well-being and quality-of-life research. He is the current editor of ISQOLS/Springer book series on handbooks in QOL research and the community QOL indicators best practices.

Don R. Rahtz is a marketing/marketing communications researcher (Ph.D., Virginia Tech 1984) and the J.S. Mack Professor of Marketing at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. He is a Distinguished Research Fellow in the International Society for Quality of Life Studies (ISQOLS). He serves on the Editorial Review Boards of the Journal of Macromarketing and Applied Research in Quality of Life.
His expertise is in integrated marketing communication programs, marketing research, survey methodology, analysis, and market assessment. He has had a particular interest in cultural intelligence, environmental issues, economic sustainable development, transitional economies, business/community interface evaluation, and health systems. He has traveled and worked extensively in the South Asian and Southeast Asian areas with a particular focus on Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Don has conducted a variety of workshops and seminars, and consulted businesses in both the public and private sectors concerning the listed topics, both in the United States and abroad. In addition, he has produced a number of publications regarding these topics that have appeared books, academic journals, and the popular press. He has been active in promoting the quality of life and macromarketing fields of study in a variety of disciplines and is a founding member of the International Society for Quality of Life Studies.

Laura Portolese (Doctorate, Argosy University) is the author or co-author of four books with FlatWorld (Human Resource Management, Human Relations, The Art of Supervision and Leadership, and Consumer Behavior Today). Professor Portolese holds a master of business administration from City University and a doctorate of business administration from Argosy University. She teaches in the Department of Information Technology and Administrative Management, part of the Cenral Washington University’s College of Education and Professional Studies. Before beginning her teaching career, Professor Portolese worked for several organizations in management and operations. She’s also an entrepreneur who has performed consulting work for companies such as Microsoft.