ROBE Team

Kimarie Bugg, DNP, FNP-BC, MPH, IBCLC, is Chief Empowerment Officer (CEO) and Change Leader of Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere, Inc. (ROSE), a nonprofit corporation developed in 2011, to address breastfeeding inequities and disparities in the African American community. Dr. Bugg previously worked for Emory University, School of Medicine, as a nurse practitioner, private practice pediatrics as an NP, as a perinatal nurse consultant for the state of Georgia, perinatal educator, hospital nurse administrator, special care nursery staff, bedside breastfeeding consultant and pediatric emergency clinic staff nurse. Kimarie was a board member of the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) and faculty for CHAMPS (communities and hospital’s advancing maternal practices) a Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative. She also provided training for WIC Breastfeeding administrative staff and Peer Counselors nationally. Dr. Bugg completed a Community Health Leadership Program, within the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine that stressed best practices to provide global health equity and eliminating health disparities through action-oriented projects. Mrs. Bugg is married to Dr. George W. Bugg Jr. a neonatologist and they are the parents of five adult children.

G. Wesley Bugg, ROBE Director is a 2016 graduate of the University of Miami’s School of Law (JD, LLM), and 2013 graduate of Emory University (BA). He is currently the director of Reaching Our Brothers Everywhere, a program of ROSE that is focused on Fatherhood and increasing breastfeeding initiation and duration in communities of color and decreasing Black infant mortality.

He is deputy director of Court Vision International Inc., a nonprofit that promotes youth advocacy and conflict resolution. His current interests include legal compliance and business development, especially for startups and small nonprofits where these tasks are often expensive and difficult. In this spirit, he serves ROSE as the Legal Compliance Officer and financial assistant, aggregated into his role as Financial and Legal Operation Coordinator.

Israel Route is a proud man of color, Entrepreneur, Coach, and Philanthropist. He is from Atlanta, Georgia and was born into a large family, where he is the 5th of 7 children. In his formative years, Israel was a multi-sport student-athlete at Stephenson High School where he was a scholar and state champion. As a result, Mr. Route earned a full-scholarship to Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was a 4 year letterwinner and All-Conference player and a valued member of the community. After playing 4 years at Tulane, Mr. Route earned an opportunity to play in the NFL, after signing with the Detroit Lions as an undrafted free agent. While in Detroit, he began working with various national & local non-profit organizations and with those partnership was able to coordinate and facilitate community service events across the country.
Following his time in the NFL, Mr. Route spent some time in the Arena Football League before returning to Tulane University where he served as a Graduate Assistant and Life Skills Coordinator for student-athletes and college students. In this role he planned and executed city, state, and community outreach service events for Tulane throughout Louisiana, as well as facilitating life skills presentations, providing mentorship, and networking opportunities for student-athletes and young adults. During his time at Tulane and in New Orleans, Mr. Route then began his journey in education and coaching by supporting numerous high school sports teams and served as a consult and community lay coach as an alumnus for his old high school.
During this time, he was led to start a mentorship and college & career prep program called Be A Lifetime Learner, and co-founded a not for profit organization called ROUTEway (Realizing Our Unique Talents Everyday) as a way to mentor youth, teens, and young adults with developing a holistic plan to help enrich their lives. With his passion to assist in bettering lives of others, he was led to Reaching Our Brothers Everywhere (ROBE) alongside his father to be an advocate in maternal, child and family health. Successively Mr. Route works in the Sports & Entertainment industries as a manager and consultant, with focus on Non-Profit causes and initiatives. This provides an opportunity to support his passion to help others through education, exposure to valuable endeavors, and to create & connect them to experiential opportunities.

George Bugg, Jr., MD, MPH, is a retired neonatologist who formerly served as the chief of the neonatology service at Grady Memorial Hospital and the neonatal director of the Emory Regional Perinatal Center. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (BA), Meharry Medical College (MD), and Emory University (MPH). He is a charter member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and was trained in lactation management at Wellstart International.  He is a lifetime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. He and his wife, Kimarie Bugg, are the proud parents of five children and one grandchild.

Caleb Bugg is the Jerry & Harriett Thuesen Postdoctoral Fellow in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, working with Gian-Gabriel Garcia. He seeks to discover and implement novel interpretations of global issues, and to prescribe simple solutions that we as a global community can implement. Utilizing the mathematics and statistical models native to Operations Research and Management, he synthesizes topics that provide an analytical basis for our society to invest in long-term, social good projects. The basis of the work is to improve the citizenry’s value for socially beneficial goods, so that they may live healthy and active lifestyles, while solving their communities’ most pressing issues. He is a 2017 graduate of Morehouse College with a B.S. in Mathematics, and a 2022 graduate of The University of California, Berkeley, with a M.S. and PhD in Operations Research.