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“The Steamboat Institute’s mission is to educate the public on the Founding Principles of the United States, and to inspire people to be actively involved in their implementation.”
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Here at The Steamboat Institute, we are Defenders of Freedom and Advocates of Liberty. We are admirers of the bravery and rugged individualism that has made this country great. We are admirers of the greatness and wisdom that resides in every individual. We understand that this is a great nation because of its people, not because of its government. Like Thomas Jefferson, we would rather be, “exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”
The Steamboat Institute is an educational organization recognized as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code–and we are here to educate. We are here to help provide tools, information, and inspiration to those who hold the Founding Principles of the nation dear.
The Steamboat Institute has no paid staff. It is organized and operated by folks like you with full-time careers and small businesses–folks who are concerned about preserving the greatness of this country. Like the Founders, we have pledged our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to this task. We invite you to join us.
The Steamboat Institute is a grassroots organization. It is organized, operated, and sustained by generous donations of time and money by our patriotic volunteers.
To pursue our educational purpose, inspire our members and create a more balanced intellectual dialogue in the media and public policy arenas, The Steamboat Institute will be hosting thought-inspiring seminars, conferences, forums and briefings designed to create a more informed citizenry.
We’re delighted to host our
Fourth Annual Freedom Conference
August 24-25, 2012
The Steamboat Grand, Steamboat Springs, Colorado
Board of Directors
Jennifer L. Schubert-Akin — Chairman
Owner, Marathon Accounting Services, LLC, Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Jennifer Schubert-Akin has lived in beautiful Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with her husband of 30 years, Rick Akin, since 1995. Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and received her Master’s of Business Administration degree from Saint Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. Jennifer founded her business, Marathon Accounting Services, in 1999, providing accounting and consulting services to a variety of small businesses. Jennifer is a graduate of the Leadership Program of the Rockies and also served on that organization’s Advisory Board for several years. She, along with her husband, Rick, co-founded and serves as Chairman of The Steamboat Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the advancement of conservative principles. Jennifer was formerly Chairman of the Routt County Republican Central Committee and has also participated in many community activities in Steamboat Springs, including serving as Community Representative on the Steamboat Pilot & Today Editorial Board, Steamboat Marathon Committee, Tax Policy Advisory Board appointed by the Steamboat Springs City Council and many other activities. In her free time, Jennifer enjoys trail running with her 4-legged children, Boomer and Cruiser, and has completed 3 Leadville Trail 100-mile Races and the last 17 consecutive Boston Marathons.
Rick Akin — Vice Chairman
Founding Member, The Akin Law Firm, LLC, Attorneys and Counselors, Denver, Austin, and Steamboat Springs
Jennifer’s husband, Rick, is the Vice Chairman and a co-founder of The Steamboat Institute. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Letters Degree with Highest Honors from the University of Oklahoma and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a member of Order of the Coif and The Texas Law Review. Rick is currently the owner of The Akin Law Firm, LLC with offices in Austin, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Rick began his career at Austin’s largest law firm, Clark Thomas & Winters, where he was a shareholder and member of the management committee before moving to Steamboat Springs in 1995. Rick is also a member of the board of Directors of Marathon Kids, a non-profit corporation dedicated to exercise and healthy habits for school age children. He is a former member of Steamboat Pilot & Today Editorial Board and the Routt County Airport Board and is a graduate of the Leadership Program of the Rockies. Rick coordinates the conservative editorial series for the Sunday Steamboat Pilot newspaper. Rick enjoys fishing, canoeing, hiking, and climbing 14ers.
Gary Hofmeister — Treasurer
Most people know Gary Hofmeister from Hofmeister Personal Jewelers which he founded 36 years ago and remains the C.E.O. Prior to entering the jewelry industry, he was a professional singer/actor, salesman and health administrator. Though he says he never had one conservative professor all the way through his undergraduate studies nor his graduate work at Purdue, he has been an active conservative most of his life and was the Republican nominee for U.S. Congress in 1998 for the 10th congressional district.
Gary’s political beliefs also led him to teach Applied Economics for Junior Achievement in several high schools for 10 years. Taking it to another level in 1992, he began going to the former Soviet Union to share Democratic Capitalism and his experiences as an entrepreneur after the Berlin Wall fell. He made 18 such trips developing his own curricula and running seminars from one to three days in various cities. Most trips lasted about three weeks.
Gary also hosted a political talk show in 1990-91 called TALK OF THE CITY and another for WFYI from 2004-06 called BROADWAY MEMORIES: MUSIC AND THE STARS, drawing on his experiences as a Broadway singer.
He is married to JoAnne and together they share 20 grandchildren.
Anne A. Lowe – Secretary
Pharm D
Anne and her husband Rich have lived part time in Steamboat Springs for more than a decade, and have been full time residents since 2007. Steamboat provides excellent recreational opportunities for the sports Anne enjoys such as skiing, hiking, biking and horseback riding. is a native of Salt Lake City where she earned a BS in Biology and later a BS in Pharmacy, both from the University of Utah. She later received her Pharmacy Doctorate (PharmD) from the University of Colorado in 2006 and became a Certified Geriatric Pharmacist (CGP) in 2007. Recently Anne obtained her Anticoagulation Certification and is currently working with the New Joint Mobility Program at Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs, as well as working in a community pharmacy. She and her husband have three grown children and two grandkids. She got involved with the Steamboat Institute after attending Steamboat’s first Tax Day Tea Party in 2009. Anne claims that becoming a grandma has been her motivation. She realizes that as Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”.
Kelly Victory MS, MD, FACEP
President, Victory Health
Dr. Kelly Victory has vacationed and owned a home in the Yampa Valley for more than 20 years, until finally making a ranch in Steamboat her full-time residence in 2008.
Kelly is a board certified trauma and emergency specialist, and an expert in disaster preparedness and the medical management of mass casualties. She served for many years as the Chief Medical Officer for Whole Health Management, and developed and lead their Health & Wellness Division until the sale of the Company to Walgreens in 2008.
Prior to Whole Health, Kelly founded a medical-legal consulting firm and was a principle in an investment banking firm where she lead efforts to raise funds for innovative healthcare companies. She holds a BS from Duke University, studied literature at Oxford University in England, attended the Masters program in Clinical Psychology at the University of Illinois, and received her Medical Degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Dr. Victory currently serves on the Boards of multiple non-profit organizations and healthcare companies. She has been very involved in the healthcare policy debate, and consults with a variety of politicians and both public and private companies regarding sustainable models for healthcare. She is a guest lecturer at the University of Notre Dame and Harvard Business School, and is a member of the Leadership Council at the Harvard School of Public Health. She makes frequent appearances at political events and on talk radio shows across the nation to discuss healthcare and the impact of the recent reform legislation. Kelly has been recognized by multiple organizations for her leadership in entrepreneurial and healthcare ventures.
In her free time, Kelly is an avid distance runner, hiker and gardener, and enjoys time on the ranch with Labrador Retrievers, Reilly and Callahan, and her horse, Finnegan.
Kelly is a Contributing Editor for Line of Sight, an online publication. Click here to read her articles.
Cheri Carsten
Cheri Carsten and her husband COL(R) Don Griffin have lived full time and part time in Steamboat Springs since 2002. Cheri is a native of Colorado and an avid horsewoman. She had a first career as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Army serving in Asia, Europe and the U.S. and then as a civilian with the Department of Defense in Germany and Washington DC with a specialty in Organizational Development. Cheri holds a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland. In her second career, Cheri was a senior Human Resources Management executive for several large corporations including Prudential and a subsidiary of Air Canada. Cheri is an active and innovative participant in national and local conservative political efforts and is a graduate of the Leadership Program of the Rockies.
HONORARY DIRECTORS
Tony Blankley
Edelman
For more than 25 years, Tony has been at the intersection of national politics, media and public policy. Tony served as press secretary to then Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich. Prior to his career on Capitol Hill, Tony served President Ronald Reagan as a speechwriter and senior policy analyst. Tony co-hosts KCRW’s popular show “Left, Right & Center”.
Peter Brookes
The Heritage Foundation
Peter Brookes is a senior fellow for national security affairs at the Heritage Foundation. Peter is also a member of the congressional US-China Commission and a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. He previously served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, Capitol Hill staffer, CIA officer, State Department official and naval officer.
Robert M. Goldberg, Ph.D.
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. Mr. Goldberg is a preeminent expert on health care policy in the United States and around the world.
James Geringer
Former Governor of WY, Director of Policy and Public Sector Strategy for ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc.)
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 Wyoming’s 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 America’s Climate Choices under the National Academies, served on the Mapping Sciences Committee under the National Research 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 officials on how to use geospatial technology for place-based decisions in business and government.
Dr. Hal Scherz, M.D.
Founder of 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 Children’s 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 field of expertise and a reviewer for several peer reviewed journals in Urology.
Kevin Jackson
Founder of BlackSphere.net
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 world’s 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 interested in race than they are in character.” Jackson believes that empowerment comes when you know who you are and what you stand for.
Kate Obenshain
Vice President of Young America’s 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 establishment—as it often does. Kate champions her conservative convictions as vice president of Young America’s Foundation, the principal youth outreach organization of the Conservative Movement. Young America’s Foundation inspires emerging young leaders at the Reagan Ranch, Reagan Ranch Center, and student campuses across the country.
John Harpole
Founder and CEO of 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 liquefied 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.
Grace-Marie Turner
Founder and President – 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.
Amy Oliver
Host, the Amy Oliver Show; Founder, 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, Colorado’s free market, state-based think tank. She has been with II since 2004. Amy’s primary role is to investigate government spending at all levels and then explain how that spending affects 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.
Bob Beauprez
Former Congressman and Editor-in-Chief of “A Line of Sight”
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 family’s real estate development creating a 1500 residential unit golf course community. In 2002, Bob was elected as the first representative from Colorado’s 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 first 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 buffalo 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.
Alan Wilson
Attorney General, South Carolina
Alan Wilson was elected South Carolina’s Fifty-First Attorney General on November 2, 2010 and took office 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, Wilson’s 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 fire in Iraq.
Former Honorary Directors:
Kellyanne E. Conway
Founder and President, the polling company, inc./WomanTrend
Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway is Founder and President of the polling company™, inc./WomanTrend a privately-held, woman-owned corporation founded in 1995. The firm is headquartered in Washington, DC and maintains an office in New York City. Kellyanne is one of the most quoted and noted pollsters on the national scene, having provided commentary on over 1,200 television shows.
J. French Hill
Chairman & CEO of Delta Trust & Banking Corp.
J. French Hill is an investor and venture capitalist living in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. He is founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Delta Trust & Banking Corp., a private banking company headquartered in Little Rock. Mr. Hill founded Delta Trust after a six-year career with Arkansas’ largest bank holding company, First Commercial Corp. First Commercial is now part of Regions Financial Corp.
Dan Mitchell
The Cato Institute
Dan currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C. Mitchell’s research interests include tax reform, international tax competition, and the economics of fiscal policy. He is one of the nation’s leading experts on the flat tax, and has been the leading international voice in the fight to preserve tax competition, financial privacy, and fiscal sovereignty.
Christopher C. Horner
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Horner is author of Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America. As an attorney, Horner has represented CEI, scientists and Members of the U.S. Congress on matters of environmental policy in the federal courts, including in amicus briefs on several key cases heard by the Supreme Court. He is the author of two bestselling books on global warming policy.
Clifford May
President, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
He is the co-editor of The Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater: Militant Islam, Security and Stability. At the invitation of the Department of State, Mr. May recently traveled to Pakistan to advise U.S. and Pakistani government officials on their fight against terrorism.
Grover G. Norquist
President, Americans for Tax Reform
Mr. Norquist, a native of Massachusetts, has been one of Washington’s most effective issues management strategists for over two decades. He is president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a coalition of taxpayer groups, individuals and businesses opposed to higher taxes at the federal, state and local levels.
Post Office Box 883037, Steamboat Springs, Colorado 80488 * 970-871-9936 * 970-870-0571 fax
