Dennis L. Bark is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute where he focuses on international relations and national security with a focuon European politics and the European Community. He has authored or edited nine books including Reflections on Europe (1997) and Europeans and Americans Dancing in the Dark (2007). In 1997 he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Merit, First Class, of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his contributions to American and German relations. In 2001 he was similarly rewarded with the Knight’s Cross of the National Legion of Honor of the Republic of France. He is the chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Earhart Foundation and holds his Ph.D. in European history from the Free University of Berlin.
Dan Blumenthal is a current commissioner and former vice chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, where he directs efforts to monitor, investigate, and provide recommendations on the national security implications of the economic relationship between the two countries. Previously, he was senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia in the Secretary of Defense’s Office of International Security Affairs and practiced law in New York prior to his government service. He is also a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he works on the national security implications of U.S.-Sino relations. Mr Blumenthal holds a J.D. from Duke Law School and an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
John R. Bolton is the former US Ambassador to the United Nations serving under President George W. Bush. He is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a regular on the Fox News Channel, and serves as counsel to the law firm Kirkland and Ellis. He has served as General Counsel to USAID, Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice and as Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs at the Department of State. Amb. Bolton is a Fox News commentator and is involved with a broad assortment of conservative think tanks and policy institutes, including the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), Institute of East-West Dynamics, National Rifle Association, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the Council for National Policy (CNP). He is also a lawyer and holds both his B.A. and J.D. from Yale University.
L. Paul Bremer is an American diplomat who is widely recognized as a leading expert on world affairs, counter terrorism, and Middle East policy. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he served as the US Ambassador to the Netherlands and as U.S. Coordinator for Counterterrorism. Amb. Bremer retired from government to work in the private sector where he served as Chairman and CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting as well as trustee and member of the board for numerous private companies, organizations, and charitable foundations. Amb. Bremer assumed his role as the chief executive authority for Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority on May 11, 2003. He helped to develop the interim constitution and he oversaw the transition to democracy, privatization of state industries and the peaceful transfer of limited sovereignty back to the Iraqi people under Iraqi Interim Government on June 28th, 2004. Amb. Bremer currently is the CEO of World T.E.A.M Sports, a Virginia based non-profit. He serves on the board of directors of the International Republican Institute and assists his wife Frances with her role as spokeswoman for the National Fibromyalgia Association. Amb. Bremer graduated from Yale University and he holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Randee E. Day is President and CEO of Day & Partners, LLC a financial consulting firm providing strategic advice to companies and capital holders servicing the maritime and energy sector. Ms. Day is considered an expert on international maritime trade and the restructuring of troubled shipping companies. Prior to re-establishing her consulting firm, Ms. Day acted as CEO of DHT Holdings, Inc, an owner and operator of 12 crude oil tankers. She continues to serve as a non-executive director and Chair of the Audit and Governance Committees. Prior to her role as at DHT, she was Head of Maritime Investment Banking and a Managing Director at Seabury Transportation Holdings, a New York based advisory firm. Ms. Day was the head of JP Morgan’s Marine Transportation and Finance Department where she acted as the senior lending officer for all activities in the Western Hemisphere and the Far East. She served on the independent board of directors of Ocean Rig, ASA, a Norwegian operator of ultra deepwater rigs. She is currently audit chair of TBS Shipping International Ltd, a company which owns and operates 44 dry bulk vessels. She holds her BA in International Relations from the University of Southern California.
Matthew Elliott launched the TaxPayers’ Alliance in 2004 as a non-partisan grassroots campaign for lower taxes and better public spending. Under his leadership, the TPA has grown to become “arguably the most influential pressure group in the country” according to the Guardian, with over 60,000 supporters, 15 full-time campaigners and a high media profile. Matthew also founded Big Brother Watch in 2009 to campaign for civil and personal liberties. BBW has become a leading voice in this debate, winning praise for its research and campaigns from leading activists such as Henry Porter and longstanding groups such as NO2ID. From September 2010, Matthew took a sabbatical from the TPA and BBW to lead the NO to AV campaign in the nationwide referendum on changing Britain’s electoral system. The NO campaign won by a margin of over two to one, defeating electoral reform by 67.9% to 32.1%.
Greg Hands was elected as a Member of Parliament for Chelsea and Fulham in 2005. Mr. Hands was born to British parents in New York City in 1965 and graduated from Robinson College at Cambridge with first class honors in modern history. Prior to his graduation, Mr. Hands spent time in Berlin where his passion for helping the countries and people of the Former Soviet Union began. In addition to speaking fluent French and German, he is also proficient at Czech and Slovak. Mr. Hands served as a banker, spending his time between London and New York City from 1991-1997. During that time he assisted Rudy Giuliani win his election to Mayor of New York City. A Conservative Party member since his University days, Mr. Hands served on the Steering Committee of the Cornerstone Group of MPs and is a member of the No Turning Back Group. In Parliament Mr. Hands focuses on foreign affairs, criminal justice and counter-terrorism. He is regularly quoted in the British printed press and he frequently appears on networks including BBC. Mr. Hands lives in Fulham with his wife, Irina and their son and daughter.
David A. Keene is the President of the National Rifles Association (NRA). He was the chairman of the American Conservative Union, a position which he has from 1984 to 2011. Additionally, he is the managing associate at the Carmen Group Lobbying, a lobbying firm based in Washington, D.C. In 2007, he co-founded the American Freedom Agenda, described as “a coalition established to restore checks and balances and civil liberties protections under assault by the executive branch.” Keene resigned his position with the American Freedom Agenda in 2007. He is also the co-chairman of the Constitution Project’s Liberty and Security Committee. Keene writes a regular column for The Hill. After graduating from of the University of Wisconsin Law School, he served in a number of presidential campaigns. David Keene has been named a John F. Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics and was chosen as a First Amendment Fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Freedom Forum.
Roderich Kiesewetter has served as a Colonel in the German Bundeswehr until he was elected as a member of the German Bundestag in 2009. During his time in the military, he was working at the European Council and the NATO Headquarters in Brussels and Mons as well as in the German Ministry of Defence. From 1995 to 1997 he attended the German General Staff Course at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr in Hamburg, being awarded the Heusinger prize for the best German graduate. As a Congressman, he is involved in a number of foreign policy issues, including transatlantic relations and the Balkans. He serves as the head of the German Delegation of the Bundestag in the Parliamentary Assembly for the Mediterranean. Mr. Kiesewetter holds a degree in economics and organizational sciences from the Bundeswehr University Munich and the University of Texas at Austin.
James Thomas “Jim” Kolbe is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, serving 11 terms from 1985 to 2007. He served served in the U.S. Navy and worked in as a business executive until he was elected to the Arizona Senate. During his congressional career, Kolbe served as the chair of the Subcommittees on Foreign Operations as well as on Export Financing and Related Programs of the House Appropriations Committee. Kolbe is now a fellow at the German Marshall Fund think tank and a consultant at Kissinger McLarty Associates. He focuses on issues that were his priorities when he was in Congress — trade, aid and migration. He also teaches at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law in Tucson and he is a member of the board of directors of the International Republican Institute. In September 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Kolbe to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. He graduated from Northwestern University and got his M.B.A. from Stanford University.
Barbara Kolm is the Secretary General of the F. A. v. Hayek Institute in Vienna, Austria. As the Director of the F.A. v. Hayek Institute, Dr. Kolm has focused the institute’s efforts to provide market based solutions to reform education, healthcare, pension systems, and tax codes. She also founded the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna, is President of the European Center for Economic Growth and serves on the Board of Business Consultants of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. Dr. Kolm, whom speaks frequently at international economic conferences and is also featured in television programs as a Free-Market Expert, studied business administration at the University of Innsbruck and the University of California and completed her PhD in labor market economics. She is also an Associated Professor at the University of Donja Gorica, Montenegro and a member of the Mont Perelin Society.
Karl-Georg Wellmann worked as a lawyer until he started his political career in 2001 serving in the Parliament of the German state Berlin. In 2005, he was elected as a Member of the German Bundestag where he sits on the Committee on Foreign Affairs focusing on Poland, Central Asia, the Baltic States, the Ukraine and Russia. He is the deputy foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group and a substitute member of the Council of Europe and has been a member of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. He also serves on the board of the Transatlantic Leadership Academy and is member of the German Parliamentary Group USA. Mr. Wellmann holds a degree in Business and Law from the Technische and Freie University Berlin.