One of the true legends of baseball, Cal Ripken, Jr. began his professional baseball career in 1978, made it to the majors in 1981, and quickly set a new standard for shortstops. In 1995, Cal broke Lou Gehrig’s major league record for consecutive games played (2,130). Cal voluntarily ended his streak on September 20, 1998, after playing 2,632 consecutive games. During this 17-year span, Cal amassed 3,184 hits, including 431 home runs. He holds many major league records, including most home runs by a shortstop and highest single season fielding percentage by a shortstop (.996). He retired from baseball in October 2001 after 21 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles.

Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007 with the third highest voting percentage in history, Cal Ripken, Jr. is baseball’s all-time Iron Man. Now Cal is using the platform that baseball has provided him to help grow the game he loves worldwide. Today, he is Chairman and CEO of Ripken Baseball, which owns and operates minor league clubs, world-class youth baseball facilities, a memorabilia company, and a management and design company that builds state-of-the-art athletic complexes. In 2001, Cal and his brother Bill established the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, in memory of their father. The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation helps build character and teach critical life lessons to disadvantaged young people living in America’s most distressed communities through baseball and softball themed programs.

Cal resides in Maryland with his wife, Kelly, and has two children, Rachel and Ryan.

Doris Buffett

At 85 years young, Doris, big sister of billionaire Warren, is on a mission. When she inherited Berkshire Hathaway stock from a family trust in 1996, she dedicated the rest of her life to giving it away—all of it—mostly to individuals in trouble through no fault of their own. So far she’s given away more than $150 million of her money. She says she wants to give it all away; that she wants the last check she writes to bounce due to “insufficient funds.”

She began the Sunshine Lady Foundation in 1996, helping battered women, sick children, and at-risk kids who otherwise would never have had the chance to go to college. She’s also funding college programs for prison inmates, lowering recidivism. And she does it through “retail philanthropy,” often making personal phone calls to those who need help, one by one.

Doris is passionate about her responsibilities as a philanthropist. She is personally and tirelessly involved with every aspect of the foundation’s grantmaking process. Each Sunshine Lady Foundation grant is considered an investment, and the decision to grant funds is always based on an expected successful return.

Doris’ energy and enthusiasm are boundless. Among her many other roles, she has been a first grade teacher, domestic violence crusader, political activist, mother and grandmother, and a true and loyal friend to many people.

Warren Buffett

An American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th century. Buffett is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and consistently ranked among the world’s wealthiest people. In 2012, Time Magazine named Buffett one of the most influential people in the world.

Buffett is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth, but also as a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes. In 2010, Warren and longtime friend, Bill Gates, inspired “The Giving Pledge” a campaign to encourage the wealthiest people in the world to make a commitment to give most of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

Soledad O’Brien is an anchor and special correspondent for CNN/U.S. Since joining the network in 2003, O’Brien has reported breaking news from around the globe and has produced award-winning, record-breaking and critically acclaimed documentaries on the most important stories facing the world today. In 2010, she wrote a critically-acclaimed memoir The Next Big Story: My Journey through the Land of Possibilities, which chronicles her biggest reporting moments and how her upbringing and background have influenced these experiences.

In 2011, Soledad won her first Emmy for Crisis in Haiti (Anderson Cooper 360) in the category of Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current News Story – Long Form. O’Brien was part of the coverage teams that earned CNN a George Foster Peabody award for its BP oil spill and Katrina coverage and an Alfred I. duPont Award for its coverage of the Southeast Asia tsunami. The National Association of Black Journalists named O’Brien the Journalist of the Year and Edward R Murrow Awards lauded her with the RTDNA/UNITY award for Latino in America in 2010. She received the 2009 Medallion of Excellence for Leadership and Community Service Award from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. In 2008, she was the first recipient of the Soledad O’Brien Freedom’s Voice Award from the Morehouse School of Medicine for being a catalyst for social change and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Goodermote Humanitarian Award for her efforts while reporting on the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami. Her numerous other awards include a Gracie Allen Award in 2007 for her reporting from Cyprus on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict as well as her reports from the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. The NAACP honored her with its President’s Award in 2007 for her humanitarian efforts and journalistic excellence.

Soledad O’Brien is a graduate of Harvard University and currently lives with her husband and four children in Manhattan.

Ben Cohen

Ben Cohen was born in Brooklyn in 1951 and brought up in Merrick, NY. In 1978, he and his longtime friend, Jerry Greenfield, started a homemade ice cream parlor in an old gas station in Burlington, Vermont.  The ice cream was well received and after a few years, Ben & Jerry’s started to distribute pints to grocery stores in New England and eventually nationally and internationally.  Along the way, Ben held the positions of scooper, crepe maker, truck driver, Director of Marketing, Sales Director, CEO, and Chairman of what became a $300 Million-a-year public corporation.

In 2000, despite his efforts to keep the company independent, Ben & Jerry’s was sold to Unilever.  Today, Ben is President and Head Stamper at the Stamp Stampede campaign whose goal it is to help build the movement to amend the constitution to get money out of politics.  The Stampede encourages people to rubber stamp paper currency with messages that say “Not to be Used for Bribing Politicians” and “Stamping Money Out of Politics”.

Ben and Jerry have received numerous awards and recognition, including the Corporate Giving award from the Council on Economic Priorities, the US Small Business of the Year Award from President Ronald Regan and several honorary doctorates.

Along with Jerry he authored the book, Ben & Jerry’s Double Dip: How to Run a Values-Led Business and Make Money, Too.  In addition, Ben has served on the boards of the Social Venture Network, Hampshire College, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and Business for Social Responsibility.  Currently Ben is a member of the board of directors of Heifer International and Alter Eco.

Jerry Greenfield

Jerry Greenfield and his long-time friend and business partner Ben Cohen are the men behind one of the most talked-about, and least conventional success stories in American business.  Co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc., Greenfield has helped to build a store front venture into a $300 million ice cream empire by making social responsibility and creative management strengths, rather than weaknesses.

Greenfield was born four days before his future business partner in Brooklyn, New York, he grew up and went to school in Merrick, Long Island.  It was there that he first met Cohen in junior high school.  After graduating from high school with a National Merit Scholarship under his belt, Greenfield enrolled at Oberlin College.

In 1976, he moved in with Cohen and the two decided to pursue their dream of starting a food business together.  They eventually settled on ice cream, and in May 1978, opened Ben & Jerry’s Homemade ice cream parlor in Burlington, Vermont.

Today a model for American business success, Greenfield and Cohen have been recognized for fostering their company’s commitment to social responsibility by the Council on Economic Priorities and by the U.S. Small Business Administration. They have also received the James Beard Humanitarians of the Year and the Peace Museum’s Community Peacemakers of the Year Awards.

Today, Greenfield’s official title at the company is Co-Founder. He is involved in promoting the social and environmental initiatives that Ben & Jerry’s undertakes.  He is also President of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation.