About | The Institute for the Public Trust

About the Institute

The Institute for the Public Trust is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)3 dedicated solely to the mission of finding, recruiting and training great new leaders to run for public office in North Carolina and the United States.

Founded in 2010, The Institute has trained over 850 people, including rear admirals, retired generals, CEOs, CFOs, engineers, teachers, architects, accountants, financial managers and undergraduate leadership scholars.

If you would like to help The Institute continue its mission of finding the next generation of outstanding leaders for North Carolina and America, please donate today.

Donate Now

Institute History

In May, 2010, The Institute held its first class for 8 Charlotte-area business people and civic leaders. Since then, over 80 classes have been held in the following cities and on the following campuses: Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Wilmington, Duke University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC State University, Davidson College, Wake Forest University, East Carolina University, The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, North Carolina A&T University and The Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Over 50 graduates of The Institute have either run for public office and won or entered appointive government service as a result of their Institute education and experience.

Ted Budd won the GOP nomination in a special congressional primary in NC-13 on June 7, 2016 and is now serving in his third term in Congress.

Scott Stone won a primary for the NC State House in March 2016 and was appointed to his seat in May when incumbent resigned.

Kenny Smith won election to the Charlotte City Council in 2013.

Larken Egleston is now serving his third term on the Charlotte City Council.

Four graduates were elected to the NC House in 2020: Dr. Kristin Baker, a Morehead Scholar from UNC-Chapel Hill was elected from House District 82 in Concord; Jeff McNeely, a businessman now represents Statesville; David Willis represents Union County; and Jeff Zenger, who attended our 2o12 adult class at Wake Forest University; now represents a district from Winston-Salem.

Tai Huynh came through a class series in spring of 2019 we held for Morehead-Cain Scholars at Chapel Hill. He ran that fall and defeated a 10-year incumbent by 24 votes. He is now one of the youngest municipal office-holders in the state at age 23. Tai is the first person of Vietnamese heritage to ever be elected to any public office at any level in the state of North Carolina.

Institute Speakers

Guest Speakers

Howard Lee | DHoward Lee is an American politician who served as Mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from 1969 to 1975. He was the first African-American mayor elected in Chapel Hill, and the first African American to be elected mayor of any majority-white city in the South Lee founded the Howard N. Lee Institute, which "focuses on erasing the achievement gap and improving academic performance for minority males

Joan Perry| RJoan Perry ran for the Republican nomination in a 2019 special election to fill the seat of deceased Congressman Walter Jones in NC3. She is a Morehead Scholar from UNC-Chapel Hill and has served as a pediatrician in Kinston for the past 35 years

Tai Huyhn | DTai Huyhn is ta Morehead-Cain Scholar and the youngest person to serve on the Chapel Hill Town Council in 60 years. He is also the first person of Vietnamese heritage to be elected to any public office in North Carolina history

Joel Ford | DJoel Ford is a former state senator and a businessman in Charlotte

Lucy Inman | DLucy Inman serves on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. She was a candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2020

Media Training

Valerie K. Fields | DValerie K. Fields has an extensive background in journalism, marketing, and public relations and has worked for some of the world’s most well-known organizations including Walt Disney World Resort, McDonald’s Corp., and the Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities of North Carolina. She received a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a special emphasis in Public Relations.

Bruce Bowers | RBruce Bowers has over twenty-five years broadcasting experience, including sixteen years on-air as a television news reporter. As a reporter, he has won both national and regional awards for excellence in investigative reporting. His work as a television journalist has appeared nationally on ABC News, CBS News and CNN. Bowers is currently a documentary filmmaker whose nationally distributed documentaries have been broadcast thousands of times on PBS stations around the country.

David Snepp | IDavid is the former Spokesperson to the US Embassy in Kabul where he spent four years in senior government service with both the Department of State. A former spokesperson in both the Senate and House, David also spent a decade in professional broadcast journalism including as a Capitol Hill correspondent. Currently, senior advisor to the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, David is also a consultant with U.S. Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations University in supporting strategic initiatives, objectives, programs, and international outreach through research, analysis, subject matter expertise, and exercise support worldwide.

Kim Brattain | DKim Brattain is a veteran television journalist and anchorwoman, having worked in small and large markets. She’s won numerous awards, including 3 regional Emmys and several Associated Press awards for journalism. Her first documentary, "A Glimpse of Grace" is winning critical acclaim, already a finalist in three film festivals.

Joyce Fitzpatrick | DJoyce Fitzpatrick has more than thirty years experience helping clients use public relations to their advantage. Her strategic planning and innovative thinking have helped clients successfully change opinions, achieve business goals and get noticed. Joyce has implemented successful and award-winning communications strategies for corporations, law firms, universities, museums and non-profit organizations. She has worked closely with industries ranging from real estate and manufacturing to utilities to financial services. Her special expertise in crisis communication allows her to provide valuable counsel to clients during times of major change.

Campaign Management

Chris Henick | RChris Henick is Founder & Co-Chairman of Blueprint Advisors LLC, a Washington, DC-based business advisory and message strategy firm. Chris has held senior advisory roles, primarily in presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, and in independent expenditure efforts as well. Chris served President George W. Bush in the White House as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy to the Senior Advisor, and is a former Executive Director of the Republican Governors Association. Chris attended the University of Mississippi and received a B.A. in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University. Chris was also a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Tom Mills | DThomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Tom has spent over 20 years as a political and public affairs consultant for vairous Democrat candidates at all levels of government in North Carolina

Roger France | RRoger France started as a field director for the Republican National Congressional Committee and soon thereafter became chief of staff to former US Congressman, Charles Taylor, NC-11 for close to 20 years. Roger is an expert at targeting votes and focusing on winning political messages for campaigns.

Josh Kivett | RJosh Kivett Josh Kivett currently serves as the Southern Regional Political Director for the Republican National Committee (RNC), overseeing the RNC’s efforts in a 12-state region that includes the target presidential states of Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. During the 2014 cycle, Kivett ran the RNC’s political, grassroots and voter contact operations in the target Senate states of North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Kentucky, as well as that cycle’s top gubernatorial target state, Florida. A seasoned political strategist with over twelve years of experience in campaign management, strategic communications, grassroots organization and digital engagement, he is known for his hands-on, metric-driven approach and commitment to fundamentals. Kivett has managed or advised campaigns and political organizations at all levels and is a founding partner of BEAST Digital, a full-service digital strategy and communications firm.

Matt Mackowiak | RMatt Mackowiak is a Washington, DC and Austin, TX-based political and communications professional and founder of Potomac Strategy Group, LLC, providing political consulting, public and media relations and crisis communications assistance to campaigns, companies, organizations and individuals. In nearly a decade in Washington, DC, he has served in high-level Senate, executive branch, campaign, and private sector environments and has developed a wide range of deep relationships with national, state and local media.

Polling

Tom Jensen | DTom Jensen is the Director of Public Policy Polling and oversees its day-to-day operations. During his time at PPP, he has been a frequent guest for television and radio stations across the region, and has been called on for expert analysis by publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, and US News and World Report.

Nicholas Thompson | RNicholas Thompson was Vice President of The Tarrance Group of Alexandria, Virginiafor 5 years prior to moving to Cookeville, TN to go into private business. He was the manager of quantitative and qualitative research for political and public affairs clients. Duties included message development, setting strategic direction, focus group moderating, public speaking, teaching methods of research. Prior to that, he was the Associate Director, Political Affairs, The White House under President George W. Bush. He managed a 12-state region in the Office of Political Affairs during 2008 election, and was manager of opinion research for the Office of Strategic Initiatives.

Brian Tringali | RBrian C. Tringali is a partner with The Tarrance Group, one of the most respected and successful Republican survey research and strategy firms in America today. Brian was the pollster for the Contract with America in the 1990s and was named the “Top Republican Strategist” for his work with Governor Scott Walker during his successful 2012 recall election in Wisconsin which captured national attention. Brian has over 30 years of experience in hundreds of political campaigns across the nation.

John McLaughlin | RJohn McLaughlin has worked professionally as a strategic consultant and pollster for over 30 years. During this time he has earned a reputation for helping some of America’s most successful corporations and winning some of the toughest elections in the nation. His political clients have included former Presidential candidates Steve Forbes and Fred Thompson, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and 22 current and former U.S. Senators and 20 current Republican members of Congress.

Constitution

Mac McCorkle | DMac McCorkle is the Director of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. He has served as an issues consultant to Democratic political candidates, state governments, and various organizations for the last two decades. Since starting McCorkle Policy Consulting in 1994, he has worked for state and federal candidates in North Carolina as well as 28 other states.

Joseph BlocherA professor at Duke Law School, Joseph Blocher’s principal academic interests include federal and state constitutional law, the First and Second Amendments, capital punishment, and property. His articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, The University of Chicago Law Review, New York University Law Review, Duke Law Journal and other journals, as well as in the online editions of the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, and others.

Stewart HarrisStewart Harris is a current constitutional law professor at the Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia. He is also a recommended lecturer from the Center for the Constitution at Montpelier, Virginia. He was graduated from Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Professor Harris has created a public radio show, Your Weekly Constitutional, which is produced at WETS-FM, the NPR affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee, and syndicated nationally.

Jeff Powell | DH. Jefferson Powell returned to the Duke Law faculty in May 2012 after serving as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Obama Administration and as a professor at George Washington University Law School. He previously served on the Duke Law faculty from 1989 to 2010. Powell has served in a variety of positions in federal and state government during his career. In addition to his recent tenure as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice to the president, the attorney general and other executive branch officers, he served in the U.S. Department of Justice in various capacities from 1993 to 2000, and in 1996, he was the principal deputy solicitor general. He has briefed and argued cases in both federal and state courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States. In the early 1990s, he was special counsel to the attorney general of North Carolina.

Neil SiegelNeil S. Siegel is the David W. Ichel Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Duke Law School where he also serves as co-director of the Program in Public Law and director of the DC Summer Institute on Law and Policy. Professor Siegel’s research and teaching fall in the areas of U.S. constitutional law, constitutional theory, and federal courts.

Faith/Politics/Ethics

Michael CromartieMichael Cromartie is Vice President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C., where he directs both the Evangelicals in Civic Life and Faith Angle Forum programs. His area of expertise includes issues at the cross-section of religion and politics. He served for six years as a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, where he was twice elected Chair of the Commission. A senior advisor to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and a senior fellow with The Trinity Forum, he is also an advisory editor of Christianity Today magazine.

Geoffrey Sayre-McCordGeoff Sayre-McCord is the Morehead-Cain Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Founding Director of UNC’s Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program. He has published extensively on moral theory, epistemology, and modern philosophy, and has edited Essays on Moral Realism, Hume: Moral Philosophy, and Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) (with Jonathan Anomaly, Geoff Brennan, and Michael Munger). Recently, Sayre-McCord’s research has focused on the nature of normative concepts, on evolution and morality, and on Adam Smith’s theory of moral sentiments.

Jonathan AnomalyDr. Anomaly is a core faculty member in, and Acting Director (for 2015-16) of UNC’s Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program (PPE), and a faculty fellow in the Parr Center for Ethics. Anomaly earned a B.A. in history and philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D in philosophy from Tulane University. His research interests are in ethics, political philosophy, and political economy.

Gil GreggsGil Greggs is Director of Academic Symposia and Director of Biblical Studies at the St. David’s School in Raleigh, NC. Gil’s research interest focuses on ancient languages, biblical hermeneutics and the philosophical connections between religious belief and political theories of governance with particular interest in how Stoicism refocused democratic political theory. Gil loves to teach and was a prize teaching fellow at Yale where he earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies. As Director of Academic Symposia at St. David’s he leads the Senior Seminar entitled the Shape of the Moral Life: a study in ethical obligation, moral philosophy and theories of justice. The Seminar has hosted a number of guest speakers including Nobel Prize Laureate Oliver Smithies, NC Governor Pat McCrory, former NC Governor Bev Perdue, US Congressmen George Holding and David Price, former UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp, NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson, US Senator Thom Tillis, and many others. Gil has a BA from Amherst College, M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, M.A. and M. Phil. and Ph.D. from Yale University. His interests include baseball, opera and running.

Social Media

Jorge Acosta | RJorge Acosta is a social media expert with The Stone Agency of Raleigh, NC. Jorge graduated cum laude in the honors program at Florida International University with a B.A. degree in History and Asian Studies—with an emphasis in Japanese history and language—and a minor in Religious Studies. After teaching high school history and criminal justice for three years in Florida, Jorge was drawn to North Carolina to pursue graduate studies in Christian apologetics and focus on his deep love for computers, technology and all things digital.

Tim Baier | ITim Baier is a co-founder of Spiracle Media in Charlotte, North Carolina. He spent more than a decade working as a Sports Anchor/Reporter covering some of the biggest events, before co-founding Spiracle Media.

Jarod LatchJarod Latch is a co-founder of Spiracle Media in Charlotte. He has spent over a decade working in radio and television – most recently as a sports anchor and reporter in Charlotte, NC. He is a graduate of Walsh University in North Canton, OH, where he received a bachelor’s degree in corporate communication.

Jessica Wood | RJessica Wood is the owner of Majority Connections, LLC. In 2008, Jessica has focused on producing traditional political communication strategies and emerging digital communication tools for Republican candidates across the state.

Speech/Language in Politics

Allan Louden | LChairman, Wake Forest Department of Communication. Dr. Louden has worked on political campaigns as a consultant and is a commentator for TV and newspapers during election cycles. He recently directed the US State Department grant for the Ben Franklin Transatlantic Fellows Program. His latest book was Navigating Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century. He has been the director of the Wake Forest forensics team which has won multiple national championships over the years.

Fundraising

Joyce KohnJoyce has raised money for political candidates, non-profits and bond referenda for the past 20 years based in Raleigh.

Election Law/Compliance

Don Wright | DDon Wright served as the General Counsel for the North Carolina State Board of Elections from 2000 to 2015 and had a 30-year career in state government before retiring. Wright practiced law in Goldsboro before joining the Department of Insurance as a deputy commissioner in 1985. Wright transitioned to the Department of Justice in 1991, where he remained until joining the State Board of Elections as its general counsel in 2000.