About Us

The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity is Rhode Island’s leading free-enterprise public policy think tank. A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, the RI Center for Freedom is dedicated to providing concerned citizens, the media, and public officials with empirical research data, while also advancing free-market solutions to public policy issues in the state.

Balancing the debate, changing minds, and building a growing network of people who are informed and passionate about free-market ideas are the vital roles that the Center for Freedom will play in the Ocean State!

Our Center is a proud member of the State Policy Network, a national group of state-based think-tanks fighting to limit government and advance market-friendly public policy at the state and local levels. Sometimes our critics can provide an interesting angle about who we are … click here for the video.

Freedom is not just a catch phrase. Firm in our belief that freedom is indispensible to our well-being and prosperity, our Center will promote public policy solutions that will restore competitiveness to our state and change lives for the better, including:

• Increased economic and jobs growth through a reduction in tax and regulatory burdens on individuals and businesses

• Providing enhanced educational opportunities for all students by empowering parents and teachers with expanded choices

The path to renewed prosperity for Rhode Island is the same path that founded our nation and grew America into the world’s greatest developer of human and capital wealth … freedom.

• Freedom to pursue a path to happiness of our own choosing, relying on our own perseverance and self-reliance, and free of a heavy-handed government
• Freedom to keep our own property … including our hard-earned wages and personal wealth
• Freedom to choose the best educational institutions for our children

Board of Trustees

Dr. Daniel Harrop (Chairman)
Capt. Jay Jacot
James Lynch
Thomas Mrva
Thomas Sweeney
Dr. Ellen Kenner
Richard MacAdams
Joseph Orlando
Mike Riley

TRUSTEES: T.Mrva, J.Jacot, M.Stenhouse, E.Kenner, R.MacAdams, T.Sweeney

Staff and Scholars

Staff

CENTER FOR FREEDOM

CEO:  Mike Stenhouse

Research Director:  Justin Katz

Outreach Coordinator:  Akash Chougule

Development Director: Tysen Schlink

Interns – Michael Cerrotti

THE OCEAN STATE CURRENT:

Editor: Justin Katz

Employment Opportunities – click here

Adjunct Scholars

Economics:

J. Scott Moody is an economics adjunct scholar with the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity. Scott has worked as a Tax Policy Economist for over 12 years. He is the author, co-author and editor of over 100 studies and books. He has testified twice before the House Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. Congress. He has been interviewed by countless newspapers and radio and television stations. His work has appeared in Forbes, CNN Money, State Tax Notes, The New York Sun, Portland Press Herald, Hartford Courant, The Oklahoman and Albuquerque Journal. Mr. Moody is currently on the Board of Directors of The Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER, formerly ACCRA) and on the editorial board of the Journal for Applied Research in Economic Development co-published by the University of Southern Mississippi and C2ER.

Education:

Dr. Matthew Ladner is an education scholar with the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for Educational Choice and the Goldwater Institute and is the Senior Advisor of Policy and Research for the Foundation for Excellence in Education and previously served as director of state projects at the Alliance for School Choice. Ladner has written numerous studies on school choice, charter schools and special education reform and coauthored the Report Card on American Education: Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress and Reform for the American Legislative Exchange Council. Ladner has testified before Congress, the United States Commission of Civil Rights and numerous state legislative committees.

Healthcare:

Sean Parnell is president of Impact Policy Management (IPM), a Washington, DC-area full-service public policy firm, and manages political advocacy projects for free market and limited government causes. Before founding IPM he was president of the Center for Competitive Politics (CCP), a nonprofit advocacy organization focused on defending the First Amendment.Prior to joining IPM Parnell was Vice President of External Affairs at The Heartland Institute.

Special Pension Task Force:

Rich Danker: Project Director for Economics at American Principles Project, Danker manages initiatives on public employee pension reform and monetary policy. He presented and won approval for model pension reform legislation at the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of nearly 2,000 state legislators. His work on pension issues has appeared in Investors Business Daily, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Washington Examiner, among others. He is a columnist with Forbes Opinions. Danker has a master’s degree in public policy and business administration from the Pepperdine School of Public Policy and Graziadio School of Business and Management.

Eileen Norcross: a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Norcross is lead researcher on the State and Local Policy Project. Her work focuses on the question of how societies sustain prosperity and the role civil society plays in supporting economic resiliency. Her primary research interests include fiscal federalism and institutions, state and local governments, and economic development.

Bob Williams: President of State Budget Solutions, a non-partisan organization advocating for fundamental reform and REAL solutions to the state budget crises. Bob is a former state legislator, gubernatorial candidate and official with the General Accountability Office. Bob is a national expert in fiscal and tax policies, election reform and disaster preparedness. Because of his unique experience and expertise, Bob is a frequent guest on talk radio and at public forums. His commentary on state budget solutions appears frequently in newspapers, journals and online publications.

Williams is the Founder and Senior Fellow of the Freedom Foundation, a public policy organization in Olympia, Washington, dedicated to the advancement of individual liberty. He received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University. Bob worked as a GAO auditor of the Pentagon and Post Office before moving to Washington state where he served five terms in the Washington state legislature and was the 1988 Republican nominee for governor. He is a former certified public accountant. Currently Bob is the private sector chair of the ALEC Tax & Fiscal Policy Task Force.

Jonathan Williams: director of the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Prior to joining ALEC, Williams served as staff economist at the non-partisan Tax Foundation, authoring numerous tax policy studies. His work has been featured in many publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Forbes and Investor’s Business Daily. With Dr. Arthur Laffer and Steve Moore, Williams co-authored Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer Economic Competitiveness Index. He has been a contributing author to the Reason Foundation’s Annual Privatization Report and has written for the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In addition, Williams is a contributing author of “In Defense of Capitalism” (Northwood University Press, 2010).

In addition to testifying before numerous legislative bodies across the US, Williams is a frequent guest on talk radio shows and has appeared on numerous television outlets, including the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Fox Business News. Williams graduated magna cum laude from Northwood University in Midland, Mich., majoring in economics, banking/finance, and business management. While at Northwood, he was the recipient of the prestigious Ludwig von Mises Award in Economics.

Jagadeesh Gokhale: a Cato senior fellow, Mr. Gokhale is currently a member of the Social Security Advisory Board. He is recognized internationally as an expert on entitlement reform, labor productivity and compensation, U.S. fiscal policy and the impact of fiscal policy on future generations. He works with Cato’s Project on Social Security Choice to develop reforms for programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Gokhale served in 2002 as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Treasury and in 2003 as a visiting scholar with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He was the senior economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland from 1990 to 2003. Gokhale holds a Ph.D. in economics from Boston University.