Gary is a New Orleans-based nutrition and exercise scientist, cook, gardener, writer, teacher and advocate for local and sustainable food systems. Gary holds a PhD in Exercise Science and Sports Nutrition from Georgia State University, where he studied under renowned sports nutritionist Dr. Dan Benardot, and was a part of the research team that worked with the 1996 Olympic gold medal-winning USA Women’s Gymnastics Team. Gary has served as chair for Slow Food New Orleans from 2012 to 2016. Under Gary’s leadership, Slow Food New Orleans hosted the 2013 Slow Food USA National Meeting, the 2014 Slow Food Youth Network Retreat and Slow Fish 2016 in New Orleans. Both Slow Fish and the Youth Network Retreat were the first North America gathering of their respective organization. Gary also organized a 25-person Louisiana-Vietnam “Vanishing Foodways” delegation to the 2016 Terra Madre Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy (Slow Food’s biennial gathering of delegates from 150+ countries). The delegation shared food, stories and cultural traditions from these two food abundant regions–also the two most rapidly disappearing regions in the world, due to climate change and the industrialization of the great rivers that define their regions: the Mississippi and the Mekong. Gary is now Slow Food Governor of the Gulf South States and is working to grow the movement throughout the region. Gary plans to start an agritourismo and artist retreat near his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.