Frank J. Williams served as chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court from 2001-2008. He is active in mediating major cases in the state.

Mr. Williams, 77, was born in Richmond Rhode Island to Italian immigrant parents. Educated at Cranston East High School and Boston University, he served as a U.S. Army captain in Germany and Vietnam.

He is well-known as a devotee of Abraham Lincoln. This fall the Lincoln Forum is honoring his 25 years of leadership of that group. He served with the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and was inducted as a laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois and was awarded the Order of Lincoln by the Illinois governor in 2009.

Trista Piccola, 50, is the director of the Rhode Island Department of Children Youth and Families.

Gov. Gina Raimondo hired her in early 2017. Before that, she had 20 years of experience as a protective services case manager in Ohio and was head of child welfare services in Cleveland.

Thomas Tobin is the Roman Catholic bishop of Providence. Born in Pittsburgh, he was ordained as a priest in 1973 and has spent his life in service to the church. Pope John Paul II named him bishop of Providence in 2005. Now 70, Bishop Tobin sits on board of trustees of Providence College and Salve Regina University. He remains an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

Joseph Trillo, 75, is an independent candidate for governor. A lifelong businessman, he served from 2001 to 2017 in the state House of Representatives, where he was deputy minority leader. He is a former Republican national committeeman.

Frank Caprio, 81, is a Providence municipal court judge whose traffic court sessions have become a viral sensation on social media, getting over 1.3 billion views. This fall, his sessions will be featured in the Fox TV series “Caught in Providence.”

Mr. Caprio is a senior partner with the law firm Caprio & Caprio. He is the former chairman of the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education. He is the father of five children, including former state Treasurer Frank Caprio and former State Rep. David Caprio.

Allan Fung, 48, is the mayor of Cranston and a Republican candidate for governor.

Mr. Fung was first elected mayor in 2008, becoming the first Chinese American ever elected to the position in Rhode Island. He won his fourth term in 2016, by a landslide margin of 2-to-1. Four years ago, he lost a run for governor against Gina Raimondo by only four points, and might well have won had a third candidate not been in the race.

Our guest today is Stefan Pryor, 46, the Commerce secretary of Rhode Island. 

Before coming to Rhode Island, he was the commissioner of education for Connecticut. Before that, he was the deputy mayor and director of economic and housing development for the City of Newark. And before that, he was president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, created in the aftermath of 9/11 to plan and coordinate the rebuilding and economic revitalization of Lower Manhattan, including the World Trade Center site.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a law degree, both from Yale University.

March 31, 2018 - Our guest today is somebody who has made his mark on Rhode Island in a very short time, Iftikhar Ahmad. Mr. Ahmad, 51, is president and CEO of the Rhode Island Aiport Corporation, a position he has held since late 2016. He oversees T.F. Green International Airport.

Before that, Mr. Ahmad was director of aviation at Louis Armstrong International Airport. He previously worked for Houston's Department of Aviation, the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority, the City of Dayton's Department of Aviation and the New Orleans Aviation Board.

Jack Reed, a Democrat, is Rhode Island’s senior U.S. senator.

Mr. Reed, 68, may be the most popular politician in the state. In a poll released this month, 57 percent of respondents rated his job performance excellent or good.

He has served in this position since 1997. Before that, between 1991 and 1997, he was a member of the U.S. House. He is the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which means he is very influential in deciding how Pentagon dollars are spent.

Gordon Wood, of Providence, is one of the nation’s leading historians of the founding era. A professor of history emeritus at Brown University, he was the recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book “The Radicalism of the American Revolution.” His book “The Creation of the American Republic” won the Bancroft Prize. And, in 2010, President Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal.

His new book “Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson” has been widely acclaimed. It was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 and was a Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017.