HAMMOND INSTITUTE - Key Persons
Axel Kaiser, a native of Santiago de Chile, is the International Executive Director of the Foundation for Progress, one of the most influential think-tanks in Latin America. Currently, a visiting professor at Stanford University, he is also a best-selling author, columnist, and political analyst. He's held the Friedrich von Hayek Chair at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago de Chile since 2016. His books include "The Fatal Ignorance" (2009), "The Tyranny of Equality" (2015), "The Populist Deception" (2016), "The Pope and Capitalism" (2018) and, his latest, "The Street Economist: 15 Economics Lessons to Survive Politicians and Demagogues" (2022).
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- Director of Administration, Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise
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- Regional Director, at & T
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- Interim CEO / CFO, EDC Business & Community Partners
D.L. Thornton Economics is a source of accessible economic expertise. This expertise can take many different forms, but the premise is always the same: Useful economic analysis and insight can be straightforward.
Dr. Thornton is a Ph.D. economist who conducts economic research on a range of topics, especially economic policy. He provides consulting services to private and public organizations and speaks to a broad array of audiences. He was vice president and economic advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis before retiring on July 31, 2014.
He has presented his work at many of the world's central banks. Dr. Thornton is a stanch supporter of economic education and is a member of the Board of the St. Louis Council on Economic Education and a Trustee of the Missouri Council on Economic Education.
Dr. Thornton is an excellent speaker with a knack for presenting complex and arcane economic ideas in simple, understandable terms. He has spoken about monetary and fiscal policy, social security, government debt, and many more topics to wide range of civic organizations and non-economic audiences. He is independent minded and is not afraid to take a view that is at odds with conventional wisdom. His independent views are reflected in the titles of two of his recent publications: "The Federal Reserve's Response to the Financial Crisis: What It Did and What It Should Have Done" and "Monetary Policy: Why Money Matters, and Interest Rates Don't." He has been a vocal critic of the motivation for and efficacy of the Federal Reserve's so-called unconventional monetary policies and is currently writing a Cato Institute Policy Report titled, "A Requiem for QE."
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- Serial Entrepreneur, St. Charles County CAPS Instructor - Entrepreneurship Strand
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- Advisor
- Marketing Plaster School of Business & Entrepreneurship at Lindenwood University
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- Economic Development Leader & Innovator
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- Serial Entrepreneur, Professor - Lindenwood University, Former Director - Duree Center for Entrepreneurship
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- Advisor
- Owner, Fat Dog Creative
Dr. Jansen is Professor of Economics and the Jordan Professor of Public Policy at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He also is the Director of the Private Enterprise Research Center. His current research interests are focused on the impact of monetary policy on asset prices, including the impact on price bubbles in equity and housing markets, on the jobless recoveries, and the economics of education.
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- Senior Research Fellow
- Program Chair and Associate Professor of International Relations at Lindenwood
Dr. C. Dale Walton is Program Chair and Associate Professor of International Relations at Lindenwood, as well as a Senior Research Fellow with the John W. Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise.
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- Business Chair, Christian Brothers College High School Lindenwood Adjunct Professor
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- Project Manager, McLean Insitute University of Mississippi
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- Kansas Entrepreneur, Hyder Lumber Company
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- US 36 Entrepreneur, Majestic Service
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- Author, International Speaker, Founder of the Entrepreneurial Learning Inititaive ( ELI )
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- Center for Applied Economics
- Professor
Jerry is a Professor and BB&T Scholar at Clemson University, an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, and a Research Associate at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis at Australian National University. His recent research focuses on the ongoing financial crisis including the implications for economic growth, and on the ongoing development of crypto currencies, such as Bitcoin.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Fellow
- Center for Applied Economics
Govind Hariharan is a senior research fellow in the Center for Economics and the Environment, a professor in the Department of Economics, Finance, & Quantitative Analysis at Kennesaw State University, and associate director of Kennesaw's Econometric Center. His research areas include health economics and personal finance.
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- Member of the Institute and Center Directors Team
- Associate Director of the Economic Education Center
- Associate Director, Economic Education Center
Grant Black is the associate director of the Economic Education Center and is an associate professor of economics in the Plaster School of Business and Entrepreneurship. He joined Lindenwood in 2018 and was the assistant director of the Hammond Institute for the year prior to his new position.
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- Member of the Institute and Center Directors Team
- Director of the
- Director, Center for Applied Economics
Howard Wall directs the Center for Applied Economics. He is also a professor of economics in the Plaster College of Business & Entrepreneurship. He served as the founding director of the Hammond Institute from 2013 until 2022.
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- Associate Executive Director, Robert W. Plaster Foundation
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- Finance Finance Department Chair, Plaster School of Business & Entrepreneurship at Lindenwood University
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- Coordinator, Criminal Justice Initiative
- Professor
Jeanie Thies is a professor of political science and a senior research fellow in the Hammond Institute. She also coordinates the Hammond Institute's Criminal Justice Reform Initiative. Dr. Thies began her career as a criminal psychologist and spent nearly 10 years working in corrections as a therapist and director of Missouri's mandatory sex offender program.
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- Executive Director and CEO of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal
Jeff Nelson is Executive Director and CEO of The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, which he co-founded with Annette Kirk in 1995. Prior to that, he spent the better part of three decades as a senior officer at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, most recently serving as the Institute's Chief Academic Officer. He holds a B.A. from the University of Detroit, an M.A. from Yale University Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. For ten years he edited The Intercollegiate Review, The University Bookman, and was founding editor and publisher of ISI Books. He was also president of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. He is treasurer of the Edmund Burke Society of America, and editorial advisor to its journal, Studies in Edmund Burke and His Time. Dr. Nelson is the editor or co-editor of several books, including Redeeming the Time by Russell Kirk, American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, The Political Principles of Robert Taft by Russell Kirk and James McClellan, Perfect Sowing by Henry Regnery, and Remembered Past by John Lukacs.
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- Managing Partner, the America Group
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- President, at & T Missouri ( Retired )
John Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent and the creator of Stossel TV videos. Before making the change to Stossel TV, he was the co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20." Eight to 10 million people watched his program weekly. Often, he ended "20/20" with a TV column called "Give Me a Break," which challenged conventional wisdom.
Stossel's specials on myths, parenting issues, sex, and trends in pop culture have rated among the top news programs and earned him uncommon praise: "The most consistently thought-provoking TV reporter of our time," said The Dallas Morning News. The Orlando Sentinel said he "has the gift for entertaining while saying something profound." Stossel takes this reporting expertise and applies it to his weekly newspaper column for Creators Syndicate. Ready to cover topics newspaper readers care about, Stossel pokes fun at the ridiculous and lauds the excellent.
Newspaper editors may wonder whether Stossel's incredible TV ratings will translate from TV to print. The answer to that question is a resounding yes: A few years ago, HarperCollins published Stossel's book Give Me a Break, and readers (the same ones who read newspapers) made it a New York Times bestseller for 11 weeks. His second book, from Hyperion, Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity, made the list for 13 weeks.
Stossel's special Stupid in America questioned why, despite the failures of socialism, America has a government-monopoly-run K-12 education.
Stossel's first special, Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death? examined exaggerated fears of things like chemicals and crime. It was followed by The Blame Game, which looked at Americans' tendency to blame their misfortunes on others. In You Can't Say That! he looked at the battle between free speech and censorship. He focused on bogus lawsuits in The Trouble With Lawyers and bogus scientific claims in Junk Science: What You Know That May Not Be So.
Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Among his other awards are the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.
He graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology.
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- Associate Professor of Economics
- Center for Applied Economics
Josh Hall is an Associate Professor of Economics and the Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at the University of West Virginia. Dr. Hall's research interests include applied microeconomics, with an emphasis on economic freedom, state and local public finance and entrepreneurship.
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- Center for Applied Economics
Ken Chilton founded the CEE (then called the Institute for the Study of Economics and the Environment) in 2002 after serving for 24 years as a researcher and administrator at the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis.
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- Manager of Budget
- Manager, Budget, Marketing, and Virtual Systems
Matt Adams is the Manager of Budget, Marketing, and Virtual Systems for the Hammond Institute and the Plaster School of Business & Entrepreneurship at Lindenwood University. In this role, he monitors budgetary activities, manages the planning, marketing, and execution of events and activities, including updates to websites and social media, and oversees virtual learning programs and platforms.
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- Advisor
- President, Speak PR Former Broadcast Journalist and Television Executive
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- Economic Development Specialist City of St. Charles, Missouri
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- Member of the Institute and Center Directors Team
- Dean of the Plaster College
- Interim Director, Hammond Institute Dean, PCB & E
Molly Hudgins is the dean of the Plaster College of Business and Entrepreneurship and is serving as the interim director of the Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise. She has been a faculty member and administrator at Lindenwood University since 2003.
Molly began her career at Lindenwood as the Department Chair of the Sport Management Program, within the Plaster School of Business & Entrepreneurship. She served as the Associate Dean of the Plaster School and served the university for two years as the Associate Provost of Curriculum and Experiential Learning. Molly transitioned into the role of Interim Dean of the Plaster College of Business & Entrepreneurship, and in July 2020 was named Dean in December 2020. She also sits on the Curriculum Committee for Lindenwood and chairs the President's Athletic Advisory Committee for the university.
In addition to her role at Lindenwood, Molly also spent eighteen years as an entrepreneur. She was the founding partner and president of The Future College Golf Association (FCGA). The company mentored junior golfers and their families through the junior golf and college recruiting processes.
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- Research Fellow in the Center for Economics
Natasha Kolesnikova is research fellow in the Center for Economics and the Environment and an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Mississippi. Her primary areas of interest are labor economics, urban economics, and applied microeconomics.
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- President & CEO Missouri, Telecommunications Industry Association
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- CEE As a Research Fellow
- Center for Applied Economics
Richard Anderson joined the CEE as a research fellow in the Summer of 2013 and also teaches economics courses in the Plaster School of Business and Entrepreneurship. Prior to joining Lindenwood, he was a vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
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- Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of the Duree Center for Entrepreneurship
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- Senior Research Fellow
- Center for Applied Economics
- Dean Stansel
- Education and Economic Outcomes in Missouri
- Eroding Trust Can Also Erode the U.S. Economy
- Government in a Post - Pandemic World
- It 's the Vaccine, Stupid
- K - 12 Education - Is More Money the Answer
- Like It or Not, It Is Time for Action
- Missouri 's Economy Tied to Education Levels
- Missouri 's Tax Code Needs Reform
- Policy Reforms for Better Prosperity
- Tariffs Are a Tax - Pure and Simple
- the Economy Isn'T Roaring Back
- Trump 's Tariffs Cost American Jobs, Hurt Economy
Rik Hafer is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Economics and the Environment, which he directed from 2015-2021 while serving as a Professor of Economics in the Plaster College of Business & Entrepreneurship.
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- Advisor
- Assistant Dean, Plaster School of Business and Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurial Studies Department Chair Professor, Management
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- Dean, Plaster School of Business & Entrepreneurship at Lindenwood University
Russell Rhine is senior research fellow in the Center for Economics and the Environment and an associate professor and economics at St. Mary's College of Maryland. His previous experience includes stints at the Florida Institute of Technology, the University of North Dakota, and West Virginia University. In addition to his academic experience, he has been a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
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- President & CEO St. Charles County EDC
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- President & CEO, Greater St. Charles County Chamber of Commerce
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- Publisher Emeritus, ( West / Mid Rivers Newsmagazine and Tour - St )
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- Member of the Institute and Center Directors Team
- Associate Director of the Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise
- Associate Director, Hammond Institute Director, EEC
Tawni H. Ferrarini, Ph.D., is the Associate Director of the Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise, the Director of the Economic Education Center, and the Robert W. Plaster Professor of Economic Education at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Mo.
Dr. Ferrarini is the 2020 recipient of the Patty Elder International Award and was the 2015 president. She was the inaugural recipient of the National Association of Economic Educator's Abbejean Kehler Technology Award. Other accolades include a 2009 Distinguished Faculty at Northern Michigan University and 2009 Michigan Economic Educator of the Year Award.
Dr. Ferrarini has written curriculum materials for the Council on Economic Education - USA and Fraser Institute - Canada. She specializes in the effective use of technology in the classroom and the integration of economics across subject areas, especially American history. She was instrumental in helping to formally establish the Council on Economic Education - Japan, and is a consultant for the Korea Development Institute in Seoul.
Professor Ferrarini publishes in economic education, technology, and education journals. She is a co-author of Common Sense Economics (2016), Economic Episodes in American History (2019), and Teachers Can Be Financially Fit (2020). She earned her doctorate in economics in 1995 from Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied economic history under the 1993 Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North.
Tom Garrett is a senior research fellow in the Center for Economics and the Environment and an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Mississippi. His primary areas of interest are state and local public finance, public choice, and applied microeconomics.
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- Chief Communications Officer, FirstRule Media Network Fmr. Speaker, MO House
- Senior Policy Fellow
Tim Jones joined the Hammond Institute in January 2015 as a Senior Policy Fellow. He served as Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives until January 2015, is a partner and attorney with Doster, Ullom & Boyle, LLC, and the Director of Political Communications at Pelopidas, an issue advocacy firm, and as Director of the Missouri Club for Growth.
William Rogers, Ph.D., is a senior research fellow in the Center for Economics and the Environment and was a professor of economics in Lindenwood's Plaster School of Business & Entrepreneurship until the summer of 2018. He is currently an economist with John Ward Economics. Rogers joined Lindenwood in 2016, having been on the economics faculty at the University of Missouri at St. Louis since 2004.
Rogers specializes in the field of urban economics where he studies the role of private land-use regulation, foreclosures, and the relationship between housing markets and labor markets. He has a particular passion teaching the connection between economic theory, statistical analysis and programming implementation. Rogers has worked as a consultant on St. Louis area research projects focused on labor unions, TIFs, property taxes, housing prices and higher education. He also actively works as an expert witness estimating financial losses for litigation.
Dr. Rogers received his Bachelor of Arts in International Economics from Hastings College (1999) and his Master of Arts and Ph.D. from Colorado State University (2001, 2004).