Public Policy & Advocacy Summit

Former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, retired Neurosurgeon, academic, and author

Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., is the Founder and Chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute, a new think tank/do tank whose mission is to promote the four founding principles which are cornerstones of our country: faith, liberty, community, and life as well as pursue common sense solutions that challenge conventional groupthink. He most recently served as the 17th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

For nearly 30 years, Dr. Carson served as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, a position he assumed when he was just 33 years old, becoming the youngest major division director in the hospital's history. In 1987, he successfully performed the first separation of craniopagus twins conjoined at the back of the head. He also performed the first fully successful separation of type-2 vertical craniopagus twins in 1997 in South Africa.

Dr. Carson received dozens of honors and awards in recognition of his achievements including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. He is also a recipient of the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and has been awarded over 70 honorary doctorate degrees. The U.S. News Media Group and Harvard's Center for Public Leadership named him among "America's Best Leaders" in 2008.

Born in Detroit to a single mother with a 3rd grade education who worked multiple jobs to support their family, Dr. Carson was raised to love reading and education. He has authored many books, four of which he co-wrote with his wife Candy. Dr. Carson has written several children's books including Why America Matters and Red, White, and Blue: Our Flag Matters to Me and You, and Freedom of Bark to teach kids about our important American values.

Dr. Carson graduated from Yale University and earned his M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School. He and his wife are proud parents and grandparents.

Former FBI Agent Katherine Schweit, creator of the FBI’s active shooter program, will present on school safety, active shooter, and threat assessments

Katherine Schweit is an attorney and retired FBI special agent who created and led the FBI’s active shooter program after the horrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

She joined a White House team working on violence prevention matters led by then–Vice President Biden. She is the author of Stop the Killing: How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis and How to Talk About Guns with Anybody. She hosts a podcast in its 4^th season called Stop the Killing.

She the author of the FBI’s seminal research on mass shootings, “A Study of 160 Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013,” and was part of the crisis team responding to shooting incidents at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Pentagon, and the Navy Yard in the Washington, DC, area.

She is an executive producer on the award-winning film, The Coming Storm, widely used in security and law enforcement training throughout the United States and by the U.S. State Department worldwide. This work earned her a second US Attorney General’s outstanding contributions award.

Before starting her own consulting firm, Schweit Consulting LLC, she was the director for security training at a Fortune 300 company. A one-time print journalist and former Assistant State’s Attorney in Chicago, she has published extensively, including opinion pieces in the New York Times and Chicago’s Daily Herald. She is a recognized expert in mass shooting and active shooter matters, crisis response, workplace violence, and corporate security policies and often is asked to provide on-air television commentary when tragedy occurs.

She regularly speaks to professional, government, and private organizations. She is a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety.

She is adjunct faculty at DePaul University College of Law and Webster University. She has two daughters and lives in Northern Virginia, outside of Washington, DC.

Professor, Theologian, and Author (Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self and Strange New World)

Born and raised in England, Carl R. Trueman is a graduate of the Universities of Cambridge (M.A., Classics) and Aberdeen (Ph.D, Church History), and has taught on the faculties of the Universities of Nottingham and Aberdeen before moving to the United States in 2001 to teach at Westminster Theological Seminary (PA). In 2017-18 he was the William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. Since 2018, he has served as a professor at Grove City College in the Calderwood School of Arts and Humanities. He is widely published in both academic and popular circles, is a Contributing Editor at First Things and Touchstone Magazine, an opinion columnist at World magazine, and a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.  His most recent books are The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Expressive Individualism, Cultural Amnesia, and the Road to Sexual Revolution and Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution (both from Crossway) and (with Bruce Gordon) The Oxford Handbook to Calvin and Calvinism (Oxford University Press).  He also has a forthcoming book, To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse due later this year from Broadman and Holman.  His writing has appeared in Deseret Journal, Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, American Mind, Claremont Review of Books and Public Discourse.  He and his wife Catriona have two adult sons and a granddaughter.

Senator (West Virginia), Champion of WV ESA Legislation

Patricia Puertas Rucker is a West Virginia State Senator serving the 16th District. She is a former teacher who is raising and homeschooling her 5 children with her husband of 27 years. Her life activities include membership in the St. James the Greater Catholic Church, 4-H and WV4Life-Jefferson County chapter.

Other activities include participation in local clean-up projects, volunteer work for Jefferson County Community Ministries that helps to feed the homeless and attendance in as many local public forums and meetings as she can. Patricia is a co-founder and former president of We the People of West Virginia-Jefferson County.

Patricia is a first-generation American citizen, born in Caracas, Venezuela, coming to the US, Montgomery County Maryland, in 1981 when her father, Jose Puertas, an international correspondent, was assigned by Agence France Presse to the Washington DC desk, eventually becoming its Latin American Editor. She has been a Harpers Ferry resident since 2001 and her hobbies include gardening, beekeeping and raising chickens and ducks on her small hobby farm.

Patricia taught social studies in the Montgomery County Public School System before starting a family. On November 8, 2016, she was elected to the West Virginia State Senate in the 16th District and was sworn in on January 11th in Charleston to begin her first 4-year term. She is currently in the last year of her second term.

Education: Montgomery County, MD, public schools, Magruder High School (serving one year as the mascot!) and a degree from Trinity College in Washington, D.C with a B.A. in History and minor in Latin American studies.

 Acknowledgements and awards:

• Received the “Champion of Industry” award from the West Virginia Manufacturers Association in 2017
• Received the Legislative Leadership Award for Arts in Education in 2020
• Received the Iron Lady Award from the American Legislative Exchange Council in 2021
• Recognized for Conservative Excellence by the American Conservative Union and was a Hunt-Kean Fellow 2019-2020.
• Champion of Free Enterprise awardee from the WV Chamber of Commerce 2021

Director for Public Policy, Christian Schools Australia

Mark's experience with Christian schooling began in 1990 when he commenced service with Christian Community Schools Limited (CCSL) - a predecessor organisation to Christian Schools Australia (CSA).

After holding a variety of different positions across the years Mark is currently serving as the Director of Public Policy for CSA.  In this role he is responsible for political advocacy, media representation and submissions on behalf of Christian schools.  This covers a wide range of areas relating to religious freedom and equal opportunity and discrimination law as well as education policy, both at the Commonwealth and State or Territory level.  He also provides support to school boards and oversees the Staff Relations Service CSA offers.

Mark has been Company Secretary of both CCSL and CSA as well as a Trustee and Fund Secretary of Christian Super, the latter from 1994 until 2016.  From 2009 until 2015 Mark was the Chairman of the Trustee Board of Christian Super during which time the Fund grew to more than $1billion in funds under management. He has also served Christian school and church boards in a variety of roles.

Prior to his involvement with Christian schools Mark worked in a medium-sized Sydney accounting practice gaining experience in a wide range of areas from auditing to company liquidations but specialising in taxation.   He completed his Professional Year and was admitted to membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants after previously completing of a Bachelor of Business degree with a major in accounting and a specialisation in computing. He is now a Fellow of the Institute.

Mark also provides initial advice to schools in all non-educational operations including funding, finance, governance, management, media management and industrial relations. From 1993 to 2010 Mark was responsible for the Christian Schools Staff Relations Service which assisted CSA and CEN schools in NSW and the ACT with industrial issues; undertook the development of workplace agreements for schools in NSW, the ACT, WA and elsewhere and has appeared on behalf of schools before the AIRC, FWC and the NSW IRC.  He continues to oversee these areas.

Mark completed a Master of Labour Relations and Law degree in 1999, and undertook an executive education program at the Said Business School of the University of Oxford in 2014. He completed a Graduate Diploma in Legal Studies in 2016 receiving a Dean's Excellence Award for each year of his studies along with a number of subject awards. Mark is a Graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors having completed the Company Directors Course in 2013 and a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia.  He has also presented at numerous conferences and seminars across Australia and internationally.

In his spare time, he has been involved in politics as a candidate, marginal seat campaign manager and party office holder.

Mark is married to Melanie, a life-long educator and now Principal of a Christian school in Canberra.  Mark and Melanie have three adult children, all of whom attended Christian schools.

Executive Officer, Australian Association of Christian Schools

Vanessa Cheng is the Executive Officer of the Australian Association of Christian Schools (AACS) which has over a hundred independent member schools with 44,000 students enrolled.

She has served AACS since May 2020 and prior to this role had extensive experience working in the education, government and political sectors, including as Christian high school teacher, a policy advisor in the Victorian Department of Education, the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, as well as an advisor to a federal Senator and as a senior policy advisor with the federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

Vanessa holds Graduate Diploma in Education from LaTrobe University along with a Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Arts majoring History from Monash University, Melbourne.

She lives in the beautiful Victorian gold mining regional city of Bendigo with her husband Andrei, who works as a GP and their five children, including two sets of teenage twins. In her spare time she enjoys drinking tea, gardening and jogging with her dogs.

John Schilling is Founder and President of 2020 Strategies, LLC, which provides consulting services on public policy, non-profit management, government and public affairs, and the nexus of policy, advocacy and elections.  He also serves as Senior Advisor to Invest in Education and the Defense of Freedom Institute.

Over a three-decade career, John has successfully led and managed organizations in the non-profit, government and private sectors. In 2021, John completed 15 years of non-profit leadership at the American Federation for Children (AFC), the nation’s largest school choice advocacy organization. As President, he helped the Federation and its affiliates become the most effective education reform group in the country. AFC worked in strategically chosen states to elect people who support school choice; pass high quality legislation to enact or expand school choice; and promote, defend, and ensure school choice laws worked for children and families.     

In addition to managing AFC, John led the organization’s work in Washington, D.C. This included managing the local coalition supporting the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, helping to secure three program reauthorizations and 17 years of annual funding. He continues that work today.  John also organized a nationwide coalition in 2020 to push for inclusion of a federal scholarship tax credit along with aid for nonpublic schools in the final COVID relief package. While garnering support from a majority of the Senate, the relief bill was filibustered, and only the aid for non-public schools made it into the final package. 

John has spent more than two decades working on K-12 education reform. In addition to AFC, he served four years as Associate State Superintendent and Chief of Policy at the Arizona Department of Education where he helped enact and implement a school tuition tax credit, expansion of the state’s charter school law, and an accountability system to track student achievement and education spending. He served two years as Chief of Staff for Education Leaders Council, a national organization for reform-minded state school chiefs. 

John’s work in the non-profit sector has given him extensive knowledge, experience, and insight into the world of philanthropy.  He has had the privilege of working and building relationships with donors and foundations across the country and, having been both grantor and grantee, he fully understands the importance and impact of effective philanthropy.   

During his early career, John worked on two presidential campaigns and dozens of U.S. House and Senate campaigns. He is a former Director of Research and Opposition Research for the Republican National Committee and served under four national party chairmen. John also worked for a U.S. Senator, served in senior roles for two Members of Congress, and was a political appointee of former California Governor Pete Wilson.

John’s private sector experience includes time in the early 1990’s as research director for a top Sacramento, California public policy firm. He started his first consulting firm in 2003 and his clients included Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successful 2003 campaign for Governor of California and the Educational Testing Service (ETS).   

John graduated from the University of San Diego in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and a minor in philosophy. His educational experience includes a 1985 semester abroad in Oxford, England and graduate work at American University in Washington, D.C. He has two grown children, a beautiful granddaughter, and resides in Alexandria, Virginia. 

Tom McClusky has a long history of both local and national campaign experience. Joining the activists ranks he became Senior Policy Analyst for National Taxpayers Union and National Taxpayers Union Foundation where he was responsible for the formulation of policy analyses, reports, and editorials on numerous topics.

Mr. McClusky followed his work at NTU to become Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the Family Research Council (FRC) and FRC Action.

Mr. McClusky followed FRC by helping to establish a legislative arm for the historic March for Life. He has been named repeatedly by The Hill newspaper as one of the top grassroots lobbyists in D.C. (most recently the last six years straight).

He is currently principal for Greenlight Strategies, LLC where he represents organizations like CatholicVote on issues of family, freedom and health care interests on Capitol Hill.

He has appeared on many radio and television talk shows, and his works have appeared in numerous publications, however his proudest media claim to fame is Keith Olbermann once named him the “Worst Person in the World” for his work.

Gregory S. Baylor serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he is the director of the Center for Religious Schools and senior counsel with the Center for Public Policy.

Since joining ADF in 2009, Baylor has focused on defending and advancing the religious freedom of faith-based educational institutions through advice, education, legislative and public advocacy, and representation in disputes. He has testified about religious liberty issues three times before congressional committees.

Greg regularly comments on religious liberty and higher education issues in television, radio, and print media, including The New York Times, Christianity Today, National Public Radio, and network and cable news programs. Additionally, he serves on the board of directors for the Museum of the Bible and the International Alliance for Christian Education.

Greg earned his Juris Doctor in 1990 from Duke University School of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif, with high honors, and served on the editorial board of the Duke Law Journal. He received his bachelor’s degree in Honors English in 1987 from Dartmouth College. Following graduation from law school, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Jerry E. Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He practiced labor and employment law at two large international law firms for three years before joining the staff of Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, where he served for 15 years prior to joining ADF. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife (a medical doctor) and two daughters.

Mary Rice Hasson, J.D., is the Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she also directs the Person and Identity Project, an initiative that equips parents and faith-based institutions to promote the truth of the human person and counter gender ideology. An attorney and policy expert, Mary has been a keynote speaker for the Holy See during the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, addressing education, women, and gender ideology, and serves as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She speaks frequently at universities and national and international conferences, and has testified before the U.S. Senate, various state legislatures, and the Australian Parliament on parents’ rights and transgender issues. The co-author of several books on education, Mary’s writing has appeared in numerous publications including the Journal of Christian Legal Thought, Catholic World Report, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and First Things, among others. She hosted a recent EWTN video series on The Transgender Movement and is a featured expert for the Colson Center’s Identity Project series. She was honored by the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in 2023, and the Napa Institute in 2024, for promoting the truth with charity and courage. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Notre Dame Law School, Mary is married to Seamus Hasson, and they are parents of seven grown children and grandparents of seven.    

Coming Soon

Biography coming soon.