Gary Lange
Gary has been keeping fish since he was 10 and has been associated with the organized hobby for the last 39 years. He is a member of the Missouri Aquarium Society (MASI) and has held various positions in the club. He is a grand master breeder in MASI, and has won "Best Fish In Show" on four different occasions, twice with rainbowfish.
In 2005 he took the rainbowfish collectors dream trip – collecting in West Papua. He’s now made a total of seven trips to West Papua. He brought back rainbowfish that have never been seen in the hobby including Chilatherina alleni and Melanotaenia vanheurni. With these trips he’s collected and brought back at least 15 different undescribed species of rainbowfish. Gary, along with his collecting partners, Johannes Graf and Wim Heemskerk are currently working on getting them named. He is currently running over 90 aquariums (~2,500 gallons, 9,500 liters) and keeping over 65 species and locations of rainbowfish and blue-eyes.
Robert Lupton
Robert owns and operates Flip Aquatics in Warrenton OH, one of the largest shrimp focused business in the United States. He started his journey into the shrimp hobby in 2010. Over the course of the next couple years, his passion grew. Robert grew his hobby from having ten aquariums throughout his house into having over 250 aquariums in a breeding facility.
For additional details see https://northeastcouncil.org/speaker/lupton-robert
Joshua Wiegert
Josh is a well known aquarist who has maintained a fish room of over 400 aquariums. Additionally, he is an author and aquarium celebrity, having penned numerous articles in Aquarium Fish International and Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine, including the ongoing Nano Tank Adventures column in TFH. He owns and operates Batfish Aquatics, an aquarium company in the Washington DC area.
Ryan Chan
Ryan is an advanced hobbyist from Cary, NC who has successfully bred and raised Amano shrimp, cardinal tetras and many other nano fish. He runs the Avatar Aquatics YouTube channel with over 5,000 subscribers.