3rd AnnuAl

Freedom Conference
August 19-20, 2011

Keynote Speaker
Jonah Goldberg
National Review Online
Jonah Goldberg was the founding editor of national
Review Online and is currently editor-at-large of nRO. He is
a Pulitzer-nominated columnist for The los Angeles Times.
Mr. Goldberg is currently a visiting fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.
His column is carried by the Chicago Tribune, new York
Post, Dallas Morning news and scores of other papers. His
rst book, liberal Fascism, was a #1 new York Times and
Amazon bestseller and was selected as the #1 history book
of 2008 by Amazon readers. He is a member of the Board of
Contributors to uSA Today and previously served as a columnist for the Times of london, Brills Content and the American Enterprise. His writings have appeared in the
Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science
Monitor, Commentary, The new Yorker, Food and Wine and
numerous other publications. He is currently a Fox news
Contributor. He lives in Washington DC with his wife, Jessica
Gavora, daughter, dog (Cosmo), cat (Gracie), and a rotating
line-up of sh and snails that do not seem to live long enough
to warrant permanent status in his biography.

Board of Directors
2011-2012

Jennifer Schubert-Akin
Chairman
Rick Akin
Vice Chairman
Anne lowe
Secretary
Gary Hofmeister
Treasurer
Kirsten A. Fedewa
Publicist
Kelly Victory, M.D.

Honorary Directors

Tony Blankley,
Executive Vice President with Edelman
public relations in Washington
Peter Brookes, Senior Fellow for
National Security Aairs at the
Heritage Foundation
James Geringer, Former Governor of
WY, Director of Policy and Public
Sector Strategy for ESRI
(Environmental Systems Research
Institute Inc.)
Robert M. Goldberg, Ph.D., Vice
President and Director of Programs
Center for Medicine in the Public
Interest

2011-2012

John Harpole, Founder and CEO of

Mercator Energy

Bob Beauprez, Former Congressman

and Editor-in-Chief of A Line of Sight

Kevin Jackson, Founder of

BlackSphere.net

Kate Obenshain, Vice President of

Young Americas Foundation
Amy Oliver Cooke, Host of The Amy
Oliver Show and Founder,
Mothers Against Debt
Dr. Hal Scherz, M.D., Founder of
Docs4PatientCare
Grace-Marie Turner, Founder and
President - The Galen Institute
The Honorable Alan Wilson, Attorney
General, South Carolina

Advisory Board
2011-2012

Roger Burton
Cheri Carsten
Rich lowe
Ed MacArthur
Bill Stuart

3rd Annual Freedom Conference

August 19-20, 2011
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Agenda

STEAMBOAT INSTITUTE
3 Annual Freedom Conference Agenda
rd

August 18-20, 2011

The Steamboat Grand Steamboat Springs, Colorado
Thursday, August 18th
4:30 6:30 pm

VIP Reception at home of Board member Kelly Victory, M.D. All VIP level attendees
(Base Camp level and above) and all conference speakers and their guests are invited.
***Special Guest appearing via video presentation: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio***

7:00 pm

Emerald City Opera (at Strings in the Mountains, near base of Steamboat Ski Area), featuring
Tenor Anthony Kearns. (Mr. Kearns will also perform at our Friday evening keynote dinner on the
mountaintop.)

Friday, August 19th - Steamboat Grand Resort

10:00 am

Registration opens at The Steamboat Grand

11:45 am 12:00

Welcome and Opening Remarks by Jennifer Schubert-Akin, Chairman of The Steamboat

Institute; Introduction of Conference Moderator Tony Blankley

12:00 - 1:00 pm

Kicko luncheon, featuring James K. Glassman, Director of George W. Bush Institute

The Power of Freedom: Unleashing Human Potential

1:15 pm 2:45 pm

Attorney General Panel: John Suthers (CO), Alan Wilson (SC) and Greg Zoeller (In)
Panel discussion of 11th Circuit Court ruling on Obamacare, right-to-work and unions, and
attorney general activism.

3:00 pm 4:00 pm

Kate Obenshain, Vice President of Young Americas Foundation Troublesome Young Men and
Women: The Courage of Todays Young Conservatives

4:00 pm 5:00 pm

The Oppressed View (a spoof of The View), featuring:

Amy Oliver Cooke host of The Amy Oliver Show on 1310 KFKA-AM
Kevin Jackson author of The Big Black Lie and founder of BlackSphere.net
Jason Mattera Editor of Human Events and author of Obama Zombies: How the Liberal
Machine Brainwashed My Generation

5:00 5:15 pm

Tony Blankley wrap-up

6:30 pm 7:30 pm

VIP Reception at Thunderhead (top of gondola), on outdoor deck, overlooking the Yampa Valley.
All guests will ride the gondola to top of Steamboat Ski Area for VIP Reception, followed by
dinner. VIP Reception will include photo opp with keynote speaker, JONAH GOLDBERG,
Founding Editor and Editor-at-large of national Review Online

7:30 pm 10:00 pm

Dinner in Champagne Powder Room (top of Steamboat Ski Area, catered by Hazies Restaurant):
Keynote Speaker: JONAH GOLDBERG
Musical Entertainment: Tenor Anthony Kearns
(continued on next page)

Agenda
Saturday, August 20th The Steamboat Grand
8:00 am 9:00 am

Breakfast with Congressional Freshmen Panel: Congressman Todd Rokita (In) and
Congressman Joe Walsh (Il). Fresh from the Debt Ceiling Debate

9:10 am 10:30 am

Fixing Medicare and Strengthening America: A Health Care Reform Toolkit:

Robert M. Goldberg, Ph.D., Vice President and Director of Programs - Center for Medicine in
the Public Interest
Grace-Marie Turner, Founder and President Galen Institute
Hal Scherz, M.D., Founder of Docs4PatientCare

10:30 am 11:30 am

Energy and Free Markets: How Free Markets in Energy are Vital to Our Standard of Living:
Bob Beauprez, Former Congressman and Editor-in-Chief of A Line of Sight
John Harpole, Founder and CEO of Mercator Energy
Jim Geringer, Governor of Wyoming (1995-2003), Director of Policy and Public Sector Strategy
for ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc.)

11:30 am 12:15 pm

Lt. Col. Steve Russell (u.S. Army Retired), author of We Got Him The Hunt for Saddam
Hussein, and Chairman/Founder of Vets4Victory

12:30 pm 2:00 pm

Closing luncheon: Steve Moore, Senior Economics Writer for the Wall Street Journal

***************************************************************************************************
5:30 pm

Coyote Gold Margarita Party and casual dinner fundraiser for Rocky Mountain uSO, featuring
special guest Peter Brookes, Senior Fellow for national Security Aairs The Heritage
Foundation, and Lt. Col. Joe Aldaz, Director of Rocky Mountain uSO (note: This event takes
place at Bear River Bar & Grill, near the base of the gondola)

THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING

The Steamboat Institutes
3rd Annual Freedom Conference
August 19-20, 2011
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

3rd Annual Freedom Conference

August 19-20, 2011
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Sponsors & Donors

$5,000+

CONFERENCE SPONSORS
Rick Akin and Jennifer Schubert-Akin
Cheri Carsten and Don Grin
El Pomar Foundation
J&S Audio Visual, Inc.
Kirsten Fedewa & Associates
Anne and Rich lowe
The MacArthur Family
Marathon Accounting Services, llC

$2,500+

SUMMIT CLUB SPONSORS

Kristine l. Bensler
Roger Burton and Patricia Creekmore
Victory Health, llC

$1,000+

TIMBERLINE SPONSORS
Kelsey Alexander
Ronald Barry
Henry F. Fabian, Jr., M.D.
Suzie Hawkins Real Estate
Ross Kaminsky
Mountain Traditions and Mark Hopkins, Sculptor
Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation

Ocial Transportation Providers of The Steamboat Institute:

Accent Travel
Cook Chevrolet
Special Thanks to:
Patricia Creekmore - Travel Coordinator
lisa Watts - Volunteer Coordinator
The Steamboat Grand
Heritage Foundation - uSO Sponsor
Coyote Gold All natural Margaritas - uSO Sponsor

Panel & Speaker Bios

After leaving Gingrichs oce in February 1997, Blankley
joined the sta of John F. Kennedy Jr.s George magazine. As a
contributing editor, Blankleys monthly column Between the
lines featured his inside-the-beltway insights. Blankley also
appears regularly on Cnns late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, as
well as CnBCs Hardball with Chris Matthews, Rivera live,
The news with Brian Williams and MSnBC. In June 1999,
Blankley joined The Washington Times as a weekly political
columnist. In June 2002, he was named editorial page editor.
The same depth of knowledge and sharp wit that kept reporters turning to him during his time on Capitol Hill have
made Blankley one of todays leading media commentators.
His opinions and analysis of political events have been featured in The new York Times, uSA Today, and Townhall.com.

Former Congressman
Bob Beauprez
Bob Beauprez is a Colorado native. He was raised on a third generation dairy farm near lafayette,
and spent 20 years in partnership
with his parents and brother in
that operation marketing their animals across the globe. Following
the dairy career, Bob purchased
and managed a community bank growing assets from 4 to
over 400 million in 12 years. Additionally, he managed the
familys real estate development creating a 1500 residential
unit golf course community.
In 2002, Bob was elected as the rst representative from
Colorados seventh congressional district, and re-elected in
2004. While in Congress, he served on the Ways & Means,
Transportation, and Veterans Committees. He was the Republican nominee for Governor in 2006.
Most recently, Bob has published his rst book, A Return
to Values, and is editor-in-chief of an e-magazine, A line of
Sight. But, his greatest enjoyment comes from his bualo
breeding ranch in the northern Colorado Mountains where
he and his wife of 40 years love to spend time with their four
children and three grandchildren.

Peter Brookes
The Heritage Foundation
As senior fellow for national security aairs, Peter Brookes develops and communicates The
Heritage Foundations stance on
foreign and defense policy through
his research and writing, media
and public appearances and congressional testimony.
Brookes also is Heritages Chung Ju-Yung fellow for policy
studies. He is serving his third term as a congressionally appointed member of the u.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
He previously served in the administration of President
George W. Bush as deputy assistant secretary of defense for
Asian and Pacic aairs. In this post, he was responsible for
u.S. defense policy for 38 countries and ve bilateral defense
alliances in Asia.
Since joining Heritage in 2002, Brookes has developed a
major presence in the print media with more than 300 published articles in dozens of newspapers, journals and magazines. Many of the worlds most-read newspapers and
magazines have quoted him. As a columnist for the new York
Post, Brookes reaches the audience of one of the nations
largest newspapers.
His column also runs in the Boston Herald and his writings
are posted by a variety of news and opinion sites. Brookes is a
contributing editor for Townhall Magazine and author of the
book A Devils Triangle: Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction and Rogue States (Rowman & littleeld, 2005; paperback,
2007).
He also is a force in the electronic media, with nearly 1,500
appearances as a commentator on television and radio among
them ABC, nBC, CBS, Fox news Channel, Cnn, MSnBC,
CnBC, nPR, BBC, CBC, VOA, Al Hurra and Radio Free Asia.
Brookes has guest-hosted on XM satellite radio and for talk

Tony Blankley
Executive Vice President,
Public Aairs Edelman
Tony Blankley joined Edelmans
Washington oce in September
2007 as executive vice president for
global public aairs. For more than
25 years, Tony has been at the intersection of national politics,
media and public policy. He now
puts this background to work counseling Edelman clients on
how to navigate todays complicated Washington landscape.
For seven years, Tony Blankley served as press secretary to
then Speaker of the u.S. House of Representatives, newt Gingrich. In that role, he not only helped create messages, which
shook the country, he also helped create policy. Blankleys
knack for appetizing sound bites (which he calls his poormans poetry) and sound political strategy made him one of
Washingtons premiere sources of ideas and insights.
Working for the most renowned Speaker in decades,
Blankley became one of the leading spokesmen for the Contract with America. Prior to his career on Capitol Hill, Blankley served President Reagan as a speechwriter and senior
policy analyst.
5

3rd Annual Freedom Conference

August 19-20, 2011
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Panel & Speaker Bios

radio programs in major markets.

On Capitol Hill, Brookes has testied numerous times in the
Senate and the House, both as a public ocial and a private citizen. He is a frequent public speaker around the country and
the world, making more than 200 addresses in over 15 nations.
He has spoken as part of the State Departments public diplomacy programs in Japan, Germany, Australia, Poland, Austria,
ukraine, Fiji and Papua new Guinea.
Prior to the George W. Bush administration, Brookes was a
professional sta member with the House International Relations Committee. He also served with the CIA and the State Department at the united nations. In the private sector, he worked
in the defense and intelligence industries.
A decorated navy veteran, Brookes served on active duty in
latin America, Asia and the Middle East in aviation and intelligence billets. He has more than 1,300 ight hours aboard the
navys EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft.
Brookes, now a retired navy commander, served as a reservist
with the national Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency,
naval Intelligence, the Joint Chiefs of Sta and the Oce of the
Vice President, working as an intelligence analyst, strategic debriefer, Russian language interpreter, defense attach, policy adviser and associate professor at the Joint Military Intelligence
College.
Brookes has visited more than 50 countries on ve continents
and was an international election observer in Indonesia and
Cambodia. He served in political positions at the local, state and
national level, including helping draft the foreign policy platform for the 2000 Republican national Convention in Philadelphia. He advised the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney campaigns
on foreign policy and briefed 2008 presidential candidates.
Brookes is pursuing a doctorate at Georgetown university.
He is a graduate of the u.S. naval Academy (B.S.); the Defense
language Institute (Russian); the naval War College; and the
Johns Hopkins university (M.A.). He also has taught at the national Defense university and studied German and Polish.
Among Brookes awards and honors are the navy league of
new Yorks Frank Knox Media Award; Joint Service Commendation Medal; navy Commendation Medal (three awards);
navy Achievement Medal; Defense language Institutes Kellogg
Award; the Joint Chiefs of Sta service badge; and naval Aviation Observer wings.

Amys primary role is to investigate government spending

at all levels and then explain how that spending aects family
budgets. Her work on transparency earned her an appointment to the long Term Fiscal Stability Commission from
House Minority leader Mike May.
She is also the host of the award winning Amy Oliver Show
heard on news Talk 1310 KFKA Monday through Friday from 9
to 11 am. In 2008, the Colorado Broadcasters Association recognized her as the best news Talk personality in a major market.
Her rst MAD video Baby ball-and-chain, designed to
draw attention to what government spending is doing to our
childrens national debt, garnered national attention on Fox
and Friends and continues to dominate search engines and
YouTube. She started Citizen Auditors, where she travels
around the state training residents how to examine local,
school district and state government spending. Also, she
founded Citizens Against School Bullies, which defeated a
local $16 million tax increase despite being out spent 90 to 1.
Amy contributes to three blogs including Mothers Against
Debt, transparency.i2i.org (COST) and energy.i2i.org.
She writes for liberty Ink Journal and Save Our States. She
has written numerous opinion editorials, issue papers and issue
backgrounders. Her current series of opinion editorials with
William Yeatman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute exposes the high cost of Colorados new energy economy, a supposed model for renewable energy for the rest of the country.
Amys paper titled unabashed Bias exposed how the Denver daily papers campaigned for rather than reported on Colorados largest tax increase and wonher Best Right-Wing
Media Criticism from the Denver Westword.
Amy earned a degree in journalism in 1985 from the university of Missouri-Columbia. In 2003, she earned a graduate
degree in American History from the university of northern
Colorado.

Jim Geringer
Environmental Systems Research
Institute, Inc., Governor of
Wyoming (1995-2003)
Jim Geringer is fond of saying
that he is an engineer by education, farmer by choice and Governor by accident. Geringer served
two terms as Wyoming Governor,
during which he focused on improving education, modernizing Wyomings economic base to
include technology and changing how natural resource agencies among state, federal and local governments worked together.
Geringer is a member of the Committee on Americas Climate Choices under the national Academies, served on the
Mapping Sciences Committee under the national Research

Amy Oliver Cooke

Mothers Against Debt
Amy Oliver Cooke is the director of the Colorado Transparency
Project and founder of Mothers
Against Debt (MAD) for the Independence Institute, Colorados free
market, state-based think tank.
She has been with II since 2004.
6

Panel & Speaker Bios

Council; Western Interstate Energy Board; Board member of
natureServe and co-chair of Policy Consensus Initiative. He
is the current Chair of the Board of Trustees of Western Governors university.
Geringer joined Environmental Systems Research Institute
(ESRI) in the summer of 2003, as Director of Policy and Public
Sector Strategies, to work with senior elected and corporate
ocials on how to use geospatial technology for place-based
decisions in business and government.
Geringer has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Kansas
State university that enabled 10 years active and 12 years reserve service in the u.S. Air Force, working with unmanned
space programs of Air Force and nASA. He worked on the
Global Positioning Satellite System, remote-sensing early detection/warning systems, the Interim upper Stage for the
Space Shuttle, the Mars Viking lander, activation of the Peacekeeper missile system and disaster recovery from nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.
Governor Geringer and his wife Sherri have ve children
and ten grandchildren. They reside in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Glassman has had a long career as a journalist and publisher. He served as president of Atlantic Monthly magazine,
publisher of new Republic magazine, executive vice president
of u.S. news & World Report, and editor and co-owner of Roll
Call, the congressional newspaper. Between 1993 and 2004, he
was a columnist for the Washington Post and the International
Herald Tribune. Shortly after graduating from college, he
started Figaro, a weekly newspaper in new Orleans.
Glassman has written three books on investing, including
his most recent book, Safety net: The Strategy for De-risking
Your Investments in a Time of Turbulence. His articles on nance, economics and foreign policy have appeared in the new
York Times, Wall Street, los Angeles Times and various other
publications.
From 1996 to 2008, Glassman was a senior fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. He was formerly a member of the Policy Advisory Board of Intel Corporation and was senior advisor to AT&T Corporation and SAP
America, Inc.
He is a graduate of Harvard university, where he was managing editor of the daily newspaper, The Crimson. He is married to Beth Ourisman Glassman and has two children, two
stepchildren and three grandchildren. He lives in Bethesda,
Md., and Falls Village, Conn.

James K. Glassman
George W. Bush Institute

Robert M. Goldberg,
Ph.D.

Ambassador James K. Glassman is the founding executive director of the George W. Bush
Institute, dedicated to research
and action in four areas: education
reform, global health, human freedom and economic growth. In the
capacity of executive director,
Glassman oversees all of the research and programming at the
Institute.
Glassman served as under secretary of state for public
diplomacy and public aairs from June 2008 to January 2009,
leading the government-wide international strategic communications eort. Among his accomplishments at the State Department was bringing new Internet technology to bear on
outreach to foreign publics, an approach he christened Public
Diplomacy 2.0.
Prior to his State Department post, from June 2007 to June
2008, he was chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), directing all non-military, taxpayer-funded u.S.
international broadcasting, including Voice of America, Radio
Free Europe and Alhurra TV. He continued to serve as a governor of the BBG, representing the secretary of state, during
his post as under secretary.
Since February 2010, Glassman has moderated Ideas in Action, a weekly series on public policy issues airing on more than
100 public television stations around the country. He was previously moderator of two weekly TV programs in the late 1990s:
Capital Gang Sunday on Cnn and TechnoPolitics on PBS.

Center for Medicine in the Public

Interest
Robert Goldberg is co-founder
and vice president of the Center
for Medicine in the Public Interest. (CMPI) Along with Peter
Pitts, Dr. Goldberg hosts the
popular and controversial blog on
the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare, www.drugwonks.com.
Prior to founding CMPI, Goldberg was Director of the Manhattan Institutes Center for Medical Progress and Chairman
of its 21st Century FDA Task Force that examined the impact
of the FDAs Critical Path Initiative on drug development and
personalized medicine.
He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington
Post, the los Angeles Times, national Review Online, The
Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The new York
Sun and writes regularly for The American Spectator (where
he broke the story about Obama Medicare director Donald
Berwicks admiration for Britains national Health Service);
the new York Post and The Weekly Standard. He is an expert
on Medicare reform, comparative eectiveness and FDAs Critical Path Initiative and the author of the recently published
book, Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being used to
Hijack Medical Science for Fear and Prot.
7

3rd Annual Freedom Conference

August 19-20, 2011
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Panel & Speaker Bios

John Harpole

terested in race than they are in character. Jackson believes

that empowerment comes when you know who you are and
what you stand for.
Jackson is a highly sought national speaker, and has graced
the stage with luminaries as neal Boortz, Herman Cain, Judge
napolitano, and Andrew Breitbart, to name a few.
In addition to his Amazon best-selling The BIG Black lie,
Jackson has appeared numerous times on the Glenn Beck
show, The Factor with Bill OReilly, and MSnBC.
Jackson writes his almost daily blog and is a contributing
writer to Breitbarts Big Government, American Thinker, and
his work was has been featured in Townhall magazine.
Jackson hosts a radio show and does many guest appearances on some of the more prominent conservative radio
shows around the country.
Kevin Jackson earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist university. He
owned his own manufacturers representative agency in Texas
and served as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for
M&A Technology, a Dallas-based technology rm. Mr. Jackson
has been part of the executive management team for various IT
systems integration rms, notables being Hitachi Consulting
and CSC Consulting, and he has provided management consulting services to some of the worlds largest corporations.
Kevin in his own words Due to the death of my mother
when I was ve, I was adopted and raised by my grandparents
who were staunch Democrats. I recall as a child watching Reagan give a speech in his unsuccessful run for the presidency, after
which I said to my grandparents, Why are we Democrats, when
what we believe is what that guy [Reagan] just said?
That moment was the birth of The Black Sphereself-appointed Oender of the left sworn to set the record straight
on the destruction by Democrats to the black community.
I am just a poor kid, who was fortunate enough to have
been exposed to what the world has to oer in a most unique
way. I witnessed life through black and white, and through
poverty and wealth. I have always held an optimistic outlook,
and my grandparents instilled in me a no excuses mentality,
combined with work ethic.
I am awed for sure, but I have always decided to like what
I see in the mirror, despite my aws. I strive to be a better person, and to give my best to all situations. I am a believer in
God and family, and feel fortunate to have you read my words,
thus giving me a voice.

Mercator Energy
Mr. John A. Harpole is founder
and President of Mercator Energy
llC, a natural gas services, brokerage, and research company representing both producers and
end-users. Mercator currently assists end-users and producers in 12
states, moving 5 BCF of gas per
month. Mercator also conducts
special research projects for client groups exploring the impact
of industry trends on various regional markets.
Mr. Harpole is a frequent speaker on natural gas pricing,
transportation issues, and liqueed natural gas imports to
such organizations as the Process Gas Consumers Conference
in Washington, DC; CERI north American natural Gas Conference in Calgary, Alberta; Colorado Oil & Gas Associations
Annual natural Gas Strategy Conference and the Wyoming
natural Gas Fair. Mr. Harpole is a board member of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States and Chair
of the natural Gas Transportation and Markets Committee,
board member of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association and Energy Outreach Colorado.
Mr. Harpole has provided testimony to the House Energy
Resources Committee and the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission, on natural gas issues and is qualied as an expert
witness in a number of venues. Mr. Harpoles articles on natural gas issues have appeared in Harts Energy Markets, American Oil & Gas Reporter, natural Gas Focus, The Rocky
Mountain landman, and Oil & Gas Investor. Mr. Harpole was
the author of the Royalty-in-Kind to low Income provisions
in the Energy Act of 2005.
Mr. Harpole and his wife lisa are also currently co-chairs of
the Board of Trustees for Seeds of Hope. The mission of the
Seeds of Hope Charitable Trust is to make the tremendous
benets of Catholic education available to Denvers children
living in economically disadvantaged areas.

Kevin Jackson
Author of The Big Black lie
Kevin Jackson is a father of four
sons, and an unlikely success story,
given his background.
He is a leader in the consulting
industry in America, having some
of the worlds largest companies as
his clients. Interaction with prominent business leaders, as well as
being a business leader himself has
provided Jackson real world perspective to politics.
What you learn about America is people are a lot less in8

Panel & Speaker Bios

Anthony Kearns

Rush limbaugh, who endorsed the book twice on air, dubbed

Mattera an ocial Rush baby and nominated Mattera for a
Pulitzer Prize. (no word yet from the Pulitzer committee on
the status of Rushs nomination.)
Ann Coulter has crowned Mattera a national treasure, and
Michelle Malkin says his work is a heat-seeking missile aimed
at the Cult of Obama.
Mattera has appeared on virtually every major talk radio
and television program, including: The OReilly Factor, Hannity, Fox & Friends, Imus, Washington Journal, the laura Ingraham Show, Mark levin Show, Mancow, neal Boortz,
and scores more.
Well-known for his trademark ambush interviews, Matteras video takedowns of top liberals have gone viral and become internet legends.
When hes not busy editing Human Events or punking liberals, Jason enjoys eating organic foods, recycling his trash,
and devising ways to convert Angelina Jolie to conservatism.

Irish Tenor
Anthony Kearns made his ocial u.S. Grand Opera debut as the
lead tenor role of Edgardo in Gaetano Donizettis lucia di lammermoor with Opera naples [Florida]
in January 2011. His rst appearance
with the opera company came last
year as Romeo in their production
of Romeo & Juliet: Then and now.
This June,Mr. Kearns performed the lead tenor role,Don Ottavio, in Mozarts Don Giovanni at the lismore Music Festival.
In August, he will join the Emerald City [Steamboat Springs,
Colorado] Opera as Alfred in a concert-staged performance of
Johann Strauss operetta, Die Fledermaus. In early 2012, he returns to Opera naples as the lead tenor in Charles Gounods
Faust, a role he previously performed with Opera Ireland (nominated for best production in the Irish Times Theater Awards in
2006).
last year, Kearns starred as Don Jos in the Dun
laoghaire/Rathdown Glasthule Opera Companys 2010 production of Georges Bizets Carmen. In 2007, he sang with the Royal
Dublin Society as the lead tenor in the rst complete performance
since the early 20th century of The lily of Killarney (part of The
Irish Ring trilogy). Other roles include Fenton in Giuseppe
Verdis Falsta (in Montepulciano, Italy ) and Rinuccio in Puccinis comic opera, Gianni Schicci, with Opera Ireland.
Mr. Kearns has performed in the worlds most prestigious
venues, from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House. His
ourishing international solo career also includes major television appearances, concert tours, and collaborations with the
nest orchestras, including the Boston Pops, the Chicagoland
Pops, and the Czech national Orchestra. He frequently performs on the concert platform with longtime friend and accompanist, Patrick Healy. Kearns is a founding member of the
popular singing group,The Irish Tenors, with whom he has 10
CDs. He is a member of The Recording Academy (The GRAMMYs), the premier association that honors excellence in the
recording arts and music industries.

Steve Moore
Senior Economics Writer
The Wall Street Journal
Editorial Board
Stephen Moore is senior economics writer for the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and a member of the Journals editorial board.
He is also a frequent Fox news
contributor.
From 1999-2004 Moore served
as founder and President of the Club for Growth, a 25,000member organization dedicated to helping elect free market,
tax cutting candidates to Congress. In his tenure as president,
the Club for Growth became one of the most inuential and
respected political organizations in the nation.
Moore has also served as a senior fellow in economics at the
Cato Institute, where he had published dozens of studies on
federal budget and tax policy.
He served as a Senior Economist at the Joint Economic
Committee under former Chairman Dick Armey of Texas.
There, he advised Mr. Armey on budget, tax, and competitiveness issues. He was also an architect of the famous Armey at
tax proposal. From 1983 through 1987, Mr. Moore served as the
Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Budgetary Aairs at the Heritage Foundation. Mr Moore has worked for two presidential
commissions. In 1988, he was a Special Consultant to the national Economic Commission. In 1987, he was Research director of President Reagans commission on Privatization.
Steve Moore is the author of 4 books, including, most recently Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Superpower Status.
He is a graduate of the university of Illinois and holds an
MA in Economics from George Mason university.

Jason Mattera
Editor Human Events
Jason Mattera, 27, is a new York
Times bestselling author and the
youngest editor of a national periodical, HuMAn EVEnTS.
In 2010, Matteras debut book,
OBAMA ZOMBIES: How the liberal Machine Brainwashed My
Generation (THRESHOlD EDITIOnS) landed at #14 on the new York Times bestseller list.
9

3rd Annual Freedom Conference

August 19-20, 2011
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Panel & Speaker Bios

Kate Obenshain

ideas every year.

Kate has appeared on numerous cable news shows, including, Hannity, The OReilly Factor, Bulls and Bears,Your World
with neil Cavuto, Hard Ball and larry Kudlows The Call. Her
writings have been featured in, among others, The Washington
Times, Human Events, and The Richmond Times Dispatch.
Kate is a Virginia native. She lives in Winchester, Virginia
with her four children. She is a co-founder of James 1:27 Foundation, a non-prot organization dedicated to providing assistance to widows and orphans in times of crisis.

Young Americas Foundation

A regular guest on Fox news
and a popular campus speaker,
Kate Obenshain is an articulate,
fearless defender of conservative
principles. She inspires audiences
with her passionate, experienced
insights, never hesitating to speak
her mind, even when it contradicts
the political establishmentas it often does.
Kate champions her conservative convictions as vice president of Young Americas Foundation, the principal youth outreach organization of the Conservative Movement. Young
Americas Foundation inspires emerging young leaders at the
Reagan Ranch, Reagan Ranch Center, and student campuses
across the country.
Encouraging young people to become philosophically knowledgeable and active in public policy issues is a driving passion
for Kate. In 2003, she founded and is chairman of a public policy
leadership training program for women in Virginia.
She has been speaking on college campuses for 18 years, enlightening and entertaining students on topics on a wide variety
of issues including economic policy, national security, education, life, political correctness on campus, and the changing role
of women in public policy. She also speaks regularly at Tea Party
rallies and special events all across the country.
Kate garnered national attention as chairman of the Virginia GOP from 2003 to 2006, when she led the charge against
tax increases and the expanding role of government. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution identied her as a rising star.
She served as Virginia Senator George Allens chief of sta
and as his chief education and health policy advisor while he
was governor. From 1995 to 2000, she advanced budgetary reform and programmatic accountability as an appointee of Governors Allen and Gilmore on the State Council of Higher
Education for Virginia.
Along with Ann Coulter, laura Schlessinger, Phyllis
Schlay, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, Kates work is featured in the
book, Great American Conservative Women. Of this book,
Rush limbaugh, said, Its past due that someone put together
a collection of ideas and philosophies from conservative
women in print. She has been featured in ve of the Clare
Boothe luce Policy Institutes annual calendars and currently
serves on their board.
Kates leadership has helped establish Young Americas
Foundation as the primary resource for young conservatives.
She oversaw the Foundations operations as a member of the
Board of Directors during the ambitious renovation and reopening of the Reagan Ranch Center. Early in her career, she
developed the largest conservative lecture program in the nation. That Young Americas Foundation lecture program continues to introduce thousands of young people to conservative

Congressman
Todd Rokita
As the Representative of Indianas Fourth Congressional District, Todd Rokita is working to
bring balanced budgets and a
strong economy to Indiana.
Previous to his service in Congress, Representative Rokita
served as Indianas Secretary of
State. As Secretary, he eectively redened and modernized
the Secretary of States oce to provide Hoosier investors,
businesses, and voters vastly better service and to promote Indianas economic vitality and prosperity for the future. He was
President of the national Association of Secretaries of State
and a leader in nationwide election reforms. Representative
Rokita is committed to ensuring an open, collaborative approach to government.
As a Member of Congress, Representative Rokita is working
to bring the same sort of open- reform minded government to
Washington D.C.

Senator Marco Rubio

Highly regarded for his principled, energetic and idea-driven
leadership, Marco Rubio was
elected to the united States Senate in 2010 to represent the State
of Florida.
In 1971, Marco was born in
Miami to Cuban-born parents
who came to America following
Fidel Castros takeover. When he was eight years old, Rubio
and his family moved to las Vegas, nevada where his father
worked as a bartender at the Sams Town Hotel and his mother
as a housekeeper at the Imperial Palace Hotel. In 1985, the
family returned to Miami where his father continued working
as a bartender at the Mayfair House Hotel until 1997. Thereafter he worked as a school crossing guard until his retirement
in 2005. His mother worked as a Kmart stock clerk until she
retired in 1995.
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Panel & Speaker Bios

From 2000-2008, Rubio served in the Florida House of Representatives. During this period, he served as Majority Whip,
Majority leader and Speaker of the House, eectively promoting an agenda of lower taxes, better schools, a leaner and more
ecient government and free market empowerment.
During his legislative career, Rubio also promoted eorts
to develop a world-class public school curriculum, increase
performance-based accountability, enhance school choice and
target the socio-economic factors aecting chronic academic
underperformance.
Senator Rubio currently serves on the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the Committee on Foreign
Relations, the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

later that year, Russell was deployed to Kuwait and became

responsible for operational combat planning in the Afghan
area of operations. He continued to work in the Afghan arena,
moving to Kabul and was the lead planner responsible for the
united States plan to raise and train the Afghan national
Army. During this time he was also a delegate representing the
united States at a united nations Afghan Security Conference
in Geneva, Switzerland. Russell returned from Operation Enduring Freedom in August, 2002.
In May 2003, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Russell deployed to Iraq to assume command of the 1st Battalion, 22nd
Infantry Regulars and was at the heart of the battle in Tikrit,
Iraq, until the spring of 2004. His battalion received regular
coverage by the media, and after Husseins capture was proled
in two documentaries Ace in the Hole (Discovery Channel)
and Saddam on the Run (BBC Panorama.)
Russell returned to the states still in command the 1st Battalion 22nd Infantry until June, 2005, preparing them for their
second deployment that fall. He was then selected to become
the uS Army Infantry Schools Chief of Tactics at Ft. Benning,
Georgia. He turned down promotion to full colonel and a
Queens university War College Fellowship in Kingston,
Canada to retire in September 2006 and be with his wife and
5 children. He has since founded Vets for Victory, an organization that educates the public about the war on terror, and
travels across the country putting a soldiers voice to the national debate on the war. He is a sought-after speaker, writer
and media analyst, and been a major voice in combating defeatist rhetoric at home.

Lt. Col. Steve Russell

Author of We Got Him
Retired lieutenant Colonel
Steve Russell may be best known
for leading the battalion that was
a central player in the hunt and
capture of former Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein, but he has a
much broader, more illustrious
record of service. Before retiring in
the fall of 2006, He served 21 years
in the u.S. Armys Airborne, light and Mechanized units,
crossing the globe on assignments from the Arctic, to the Pacic, to Europe, to the Middle East and back.
His seven years overseas operationally in Kosovo, Kuwait,
Afghanistan and Iraq, earned him numerous awards and decorations including the legion of Merit; Bronze Star Medal
with Valor Device and Oak leaf Cluster; the Combat Infantrymans Badge; and the uS Army Airborne and Ranger qualications. His unit was awarded the Valorous unit Award for its
role in the hunt and capture of Saddam.
Born in Del City, OK, 44-year-old Russell earned a Bachelor
of Arts degree in public speaking from Ouachita Baptist university in Arkadelphia, AR, in 1985. That same year he received
his commission as an Infantry lieutenant. Russell served in
the following years as an airborne rie and mortar platoon
leader, a Bradley Company Commander, and a tactics instructor at the uS Army Infantry School. In 1998, he graduated from
the Command and Sta College at Ft. leavenworth, Kansas,
where he also earned a masters degree in history.
He was with the rst forces deployed to Kosovo in June 1999
with the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry as the operations ocer,
responsible for all combat operations and planning which are
critical to the success of any mission. upon return from
Kosovo, Russell served as the battalions executive ocer. In
February 2001, Russell was hand-picked to become aide-decamp to the general in command of all ground forces in the
united States, the Forces Command commander.

Hal Scherz, M.D.

Docs4PatientCare
Dr. Hal C. Scherz is a renowned
Pediatric urologist practicing in
Atlanta Georgia. He is also serving
as the President of Docs 4 Patient
Care (D4PC). His training has
taken him from new York to Texas
to California at some of the most
well regarded institutions in
American Medicine. He is a full time practicing urologist at
Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta, and is an Asst. Professor at
Emory university. He has one of the few fellowship training
programs in Pediatric urology in the uS and serves as a principal investigator on numerous studies in his eld of expertise
and a reviewer for several peer reviewed journals in urology.
I share this story not to pat myself on the back for my success in advocacy, but rather to excite you about whats possible.
Two years ago I didnt know the rst thing about advocacy; I
knew nothing about starting an organization to advance a
cause. I knew that I was smart, passionate, relentless, and tireless and I knew that if I didnt do everything that I could to
11

3rd Annual Freedom Conference

August 19-20, 2011
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Panel & Speaker Bios

Grace-Marie Turner

stop something that I thought was so thoroughly wrong, I

could no longer look at myself in the mirror. I would no longer
have any right to complain. And I certainly wouldnt know
what I would say to my (not-yet-born) grandchildren, if one
day they asked me what I did to stop the destruction of our
healthcare system. As a result, I now devote about 25-30 hours
a week, without compensation, to a cause that must be fought
for by doctors.
Dr. Scherz is the 2011 recipient of the prestigious Salvatori
Award from the Heritage Foundation.

The Galen Institute

Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a public policy research organization
that she founded in 1995 to promote an informed debate over
free-market ideas for health reform.
She has been instrumental in
developing and promoting ideas
for reform that transfer power over health care decisions to
doctors and patients. She speaks and writes extensively about
incentives to promote a more competitive, patient-centered
marketplace in the health sector.

John Suthers
Colorado Attorney General
John W. Suthers is a lifetime
resident of Colorado. He graduated magna cum laude from the
university of notre Dame with a
degree in Government in 1974 and
from the university of Colorado
law School in 1977.
On July 30, 2001, Mr. Suthers
was nominated by President George W. Bush to be the united
States Attorney for the District of Colorado. He was unanimously conrmed by the u.S. Senate. As u.S. Attorney, Mr.
Suthers represented the united States in all criminal and civil
matters within the District of Colorado.
On January 4, 2005, Mr. Suthers was appointed Attorney
General of Colorado. After serving as Attorney General for
nearly two years, in november 2006, the voters of Colorado
elected Mr. Suthers by a large margin to serve a four-year term.
Mr. Suthers was again re-elected in 2010 by the biggest margin
or any statewide race that year. As Attorney General, he represents and defends the interests of the people of the state of Colorado and is chief legal counsel and adviser to state government
and its many state agencies, boards and commissions.
John and his wife, Janet, have been married for 35 years and
have two daughters, Alison, a lawyer in Denver, and Kate, a
graduate business student and lieutenant in the navy Reserve
in Honolulu. Suthers has authored ve books, including his
most recent, no Higher Calling, no Greater Responsibility: A
Prosecutor Makes His Case (Fulcrum Publishing, 2008).
In his tenure as Attorney General, Mr. Suthers has initiated
successful programs to protect children from Internet predators and to reduce mortgage and foreclosure fraud. He has
served as Chairman of the Conference of Western Attorneys
General, a member of the nAAG Executive Committee, CoChair of the nAAG Criminal law Committee and as a member
of the u.S. Attorney Generals Executive Working Group.

She testies regularly before Congress and advises senior

government ocials, governors, and state legislators on
health policy.
She is a co-author of Why ObamaCare is Wrong for America, published by HarperCollins in 2011.
Grace-Marie served for a three-year term as a member of
the national Advisory Council of Healthcare Research and
Quality and served as a member of the Medicaid Commission, charged with making recommendations to modernize
and improve Medicaid.
Grace-Marie is founder and facilitator of the Health Policy
Consensus Group which serves as a forum for analysts from
market-oriented think tanks around the country to analyze
and develop policy recommendations. She is the editor of Empowering Health Care Consumers through Tax Reformand
produces a widely-read weekly electronic newsletter, Health
Policy Matters.
She has been published in major newspapers, including
The Wall Street Journal and uSA Today, and she has appeared
on ABCs 20/20 and on hundreds of radio and television programs in the u.S. She also received the 2007 Outstanding
Achievement Award for Promotion of Consumer Driven
Health Care from Consumer Health World. Grace-Marie
speaks extensively in the u.S. and abroad, including at the
london School of Economics, Oxford university, and the Gregorian university at the Vatican in Rome.

12

Panel & Speaker Bios

Congressman
Joe Walsh

of law, Wilson began his legal career working for the late
Judge Marc H. Westbrook before prosecuting crimes across
South Carolina including violent crimes, white collar crime,
public corruption, DuI, domestic violence and child abuse as
both an Assistant Solicitor and as an Assistant Attorney General.
Wilson and his wife, Jennifer, have two young children,
Michael and Anna Grace.

Joe Walsh has dedicated his

professional life to service and advocacy. He has advocated on behalf of a wide range of public
policy issues and causes, most notably advancing market-based solutions to education reform and
urban poverty.
For the past couple of years, Joe has worked with local
groups focused on raising early stage investment capital for
new and small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Joe has a BA in English from the university of Iowa and a
Masters in Public Policy from the university of Chicago. He
has taught American government and American history at the
community college level for a number of years, at Oakton
Community College and the Hebrew Theological College.
As a life-long advocate for limited government and a vibrant
private sector, Joe is troubled by the recent rapid growth of
government spending and involvement in our lives. This concern has convinced him to move back to McHenry, Il, and run
for the u.S. Congress. He intends to be a loud, forceful voice
against this expanding government which will stie economic
growth and bankrupt our children and grandchildren.
Joe was born and raised in the heart of the Eighth District,
growing up in a family of nine children. He and his wife Helene
together have ve children.

Greg Zoeller
Indiana Attorney General
Greg Zoeller was elected Indianas 42nd Attorney General november 4, 2008 and sworn into
oce January 12, 2009. Prior to
being elected Attorney General,
Zoeller served as the chief deputy
to his predecessor, Steve Carter,
making him the rst to have served
in the oce prior to being elected.
A commitment to service marks the career of Attorney General Zoeller and is also the mark he is making on the Oce of
the Attorney General. With a focus on consumer protection,
Zoeller has expanded the Do not Call statute to include wireless telephones, increased protections for teachers in returning discipline to the classroom and fought for homeowners
facing foreclosures. Battling scam artists with proactive investigations and aggressively seeking to shut down fraudulent
businesses preying on Hoosiers has made Indiana known as a
State for consumer predators to avoid.
As co-chairman of the Consumer Protection Committee for
the national Association of Attorneys General, Zoeller serves
in a national leadership position. He also serves on the uS
Department of Justice Executive Working Group to develop
greater collaboration and coordination of state and federal
criminal justice agencies. Zoeller serves as a member of Indianas Criminal Justice Institute helping law enforcement agencies with a focus on victims rights.
An advocate for the most vulnerable in society, Zoeller developed a partnership with members of the legal profession in
the March Against Hunger, an annual campaign to support Indianas food banks. During his rst year in oce Zoeller established an outreach program bringing the services of the
Attorney General to communities throughout the state with a
focus on serving the elderly, those facing foreclosure and other
nancial crisis, recent immigrants and our youth who are targeted by scam artists and other predators.
Zoeller had previously served as Assistant to Vice President
Dan Quayle in the White House from 1989-1991 and earlier
served then-Senator Quayle in both Washington and Indiana
in legislative and executive capacities since 1982. His other government experience includes serving as Special Assistant to
the u.S. Attorney General, Richard Thornburg, in 1988 and as

Alan Wilson
South Carolina Attorney General
Alan Wilson was elected South
Carolinas Fifty-First Attorney
General on november 2, 2010 and
took oce on January 12, 2011.
Prior to his election, Wilson
spent his legal career as an Assistant Solicitor, an Assistant Attorney General, and as a civil litigator
in private practice with Willoughby & Hoefer, P.A., in Columbia, SC.
Growing up, Wilsons parents, Joe and Roxanne, stressed
the importance of service to all four of their sons. Each has
achieved the rank of Eagle Scout and each presently serves our
nation in uniform. Immediately following his graduation from
Francis Marion university in 1996, Alan joined the South Carolina national Guard. And over the past fourteen years, Alan
has been promoted to the rank of Major and received the
Combat Action Badge for leading troops through enemy re
in Iraq.
A 2002 graduate of the university of South Carolina School
13

3rd Annual Freedom Conference

August 19-20, 2011
Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Notes

Senior Counsel to the House of Representatives Committee on

Government Reform and Oversight in 1998.
Zoeller served on a u.S. delegation to nATO in Brussels,
Belgium as the Vice President of the Indiana Council of World
Aairs in 1992 and led Airlift Indiana, a private relief mission,
to Bangladesh and another relief mission to Honduras following natural disasters in those countries.
A native of new Albany, Indiana, Zoeller graduated from
Indiana university School of law at Bloomington in 1982. He
is married to Kerrie (Turner) and has three children, Gretchen,
Katherine, and Michael. They are members of Christ the King
Catholic Church.

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970-871-9936
PO Box 883037
Steamboat Springs, CO 80488