Fred Stokes,
President

Thomas F. “Fred” Stokes was born and raised on a small diversified family farm in Kemper County, Mississippi.  At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the Army. Later Fred completed Infantry Officers Candidate School and received his commission.  His twenty years of military service included two tours in Vietnam.  He retired in 1972 as a Major.  He returned to Kemper County, Mississippi and has been involved in the cattle business and active in agricultural and rural life issues ever since.  Fred is deeply concerned about the disappearance of the family farm and the decay in rural America and has been an outspoken critic of U. S. farm and trade policy.  He was instrumental in founding The Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) and The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA). He currently serves as the Executive Director of OCM and President of CPA.  He and his wife of fifty years live on their small cattle farm in East Central Mississippi. 

Rob Dumont,
Vice President
Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Assn., Michigan

I was born in Ontario a fairly long time ago and began my working years in institutional food sales.  I left that to become a police officer with the Ontario Provincial Police Force where I served in various locals in the Province and on special duty in Quebec over a 7 1/2 year period. I then went to the University of Toronto in the Commerce Program and then to law school at the University of Windsor.  After graduation I began to teach at both the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Business Administration at Windsor (19 years) while practicing law (25 years civil litigation and appellate litigation). While practicing and teaching I completed a Masters degree in Law as well at Wayne State University in Detroit. I then went into consulting and ultimately became the President & CEO of the TMTA (formerly the Michigan Tooling Assoc.).



 
Bob Johns,
Secretary
Romar Consulting, North Carolina

Bob is a native of Chicago, IL.  He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1965 with a BS degree in management.  Upon graduation he began his career with Bethlehem Steel Corporation.  Starting out in sales, his career with Bethlehem included line and management positions sales, construction marketing, financial analysis and contracting for outside processing functions for operations.  Bob joined Nucor Corporation in 1988 as sales and marketing manager for the start-up operation, Nucor-Yamato Steel in Blytheville, AR.  In 2001 he was promoted to Director of Marketing, Sheet Mill Group and moved to Charlotte, NC.  Due to his background in international trade the duties of government affairs were added to his assignment.  He retired from Nucor in 2007 and started Romar Consulting, LLC.  Romar Consulting is focused on trade issues.

David Anderson,
Director
Colorado Springs Manufacturing Task Force, Colorado

David Anderson is a business strategist and turnaround specialist with more than 30 years of success leading organizations through transitions, with experience in all phases of enterprise formation and development. Dave has demonstrated results in manufacturing, marketing, financial control, policy, and governance initiatives. He has a raised capital, led acquisitions and divestitures, start-ups and shut-downs, completed foreclosure purchases and led businesses through Chapter 11 to solvency. He is presently an independent consultant working with manufacturing firms in revitalization engagements, including operations, marketing and innovation.

Dave's passion is manufacturing, which he believes is a critical wealth-creation element in our economic system. He leads The Manufacturing Task Force, operating out of Colorado Springs, and is on the Board of Directors for The Coalition for a Prosperous America, conducting economic education through Town Hall meetings focused on revitalization in tradable goods production. While acknowledging the challenges presented by outsourcing and offshore operations, Dave believes that careful nurturing and management of intellectual property can provide smaller domestic enterprise with competitive advantage. He believes that there are as many opportunities as ever to be rewarded for innovation, and he seeks to create macro- and micro-level results.

Dave was born in Flint and grew up around the auto industry in Detroit, then spent fifteen years with PPG Industries, in a variety of domestic and international financial and operating roles. As a second career, he built an electronics assembly business from one location with fourteen people to six locations with 800 people. Dave's undergraduate degree is in economics and his masters is in business administration; both degrees are from Harvard.

Charles Blum,
Director
IASG Group, Washington, DC

Over the past 30 years, Charles Blum has earned a reputation for policy innovation, sound political judgment, and creative coalition building.  Prior to founding the International Advisory Services Group, Ltd., in 1988, he served 17 years in the US government in foreign policy and trade policy positions. 

In his consulting capacity, Mr. Blum has focused on steel trade and industry issues, the emergence of China as an economic power, and the promotion of public policies to enable American manufacturers and farmers to succeed in a globalizing economy.  His forte is combining political, economic, and technical analyses into effective lobbying strategies.  In recent years, he has increasingly focused on the development of a series of cross-industry business coalitions such as the China Currency Coalition, the Domestic Manufacturers Group within the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Coalition for a Prosperous America.  Taken together, these efforts are aimed at creating and implementing effective policies to promote investment and production in, and export from, the United States.  Chief among these are combating currency manipulation, instituting a border adjustable consumption tax to be applied to imports and rebated on exports, and the development of reliable domestic sources of energy.

During his government career, Mr. Blum played a key role in the development of US industrial trade policy.  While at the State Department, he helped develop the steel trigger price mechanism, an anti-dumping monitoring system in place from 1978 until 1981, and the OECD Steel Committee.  For his work on steel issues, he received the Department’s Superior Honor Award in 1979.  As Assistant US Trade Representative for Industry (1983-85), he designed and negotiated the voluntary restraint program (VRA) and other import programs, concluded more than 20 international agreements, represented the U.S. at the OECD Steel Committee, and pioneered the concept of the multilateral steel agreement (MSA) to eliminate subsidies and regulate import surges.  As AUSTR for the Multilateral Trade Negotiations (1985-88), Mr. Blum helped launch the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations, speaking for the U.S. at preparatory committee sessions, participating in the ministerial meeting in Punta del Este, and carrying out a vigorous public diplomacy campaign in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and across the United States.

Mr. Blum earned a B.A., magna cum laude, in history from Eastern College in 1966 and a M.A. in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970, where he also completed all requirements for a doctorate except the dissertation.  He studied as well at the University of the Americas in Mexico City and graduated with distinction from the State Department’s intensive economics training course.
 

Nelson Hoffman,
Director
Retired Chairman, Brice Mfg, Colorado

J. Nelson Hoffman earned a B.S. degree from the University of Rochester in 1955, served two years as an engineering officer in the United States Navy, and then began a forty-year career in corporate America which culminated in 1995 when he retired as founder and CEO of Brice Manufacturing in Pacoima, California. Author of Virtue and Values for the 21st Century, Nelson Hoffman presents a view that Western culture and traditional Values are built on the concept of individual morality and individual responsibility. Through his work, he passes on the unchanging life values from his generation to the next. These uncompromising values of integrity, respect, honesty, trust, courage, and self-disciple are the foundation of individual character, a good organization, and a good community. Nelson Hoffman views a community grounded with shared values, language and to some degree cultural consensus. A culture and country that values education, economic and political freedom, mutual trust and hard work, create wealth. A culture of learning that balances the spiritual growth with intellectual growth raises the individual’s conscious self-awareness and allows us to make better decisions.

The character of an organization consists of the character of the individual employees and is the key to transcending and integrating with the cultures of offshore operations.  Nelson Hoffman will share his insight to values as the foundation to good communities and good business

Brian O'Shaughnessy,
Director
Revere Copper Products, New York

Brian O’Shaughnessy is the Chairman of Revere Copper Products and served as President & CEO for almost twenty years until the end of 2007.  His company was founded in 1801 by Paul Revere and may be the oldest manufacturing company in America.  Revere does not make pots and pans anymore but makes copper and brass sheet, strip and coil as well as extruded products for shipment to other manufacturing companies.  Brian did a leveraged buy out of Revere in 1989.

Brian is recognized as an expert on international trade, energy and environmental issues.  He championed and chaired the world class, worldwide copper industry’s environmental program.  In February of 2006, the Copper Club named Brian as its Copper Man of the Year---an international award considered the most prestigious in the copper industry.

Brian has chaired two industrial energy advocacy committees and serves on the board of directors of a third group. He also serves on the board of directors of a public utility with transmission and distribution operations for gas and electricity in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. 

In 2005, Brian testified before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Resources and testified in 2006 before the US House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform regarding energy, trade and tax policy.  In May, 2007, he testified before a triparte hearing on China Currency Issues before subcommittees of the House Ways and Means, Energy and Financial Services Committees. In July, 2007, he testified before a US Senate subcommittee hearing on the impact of China Trade on US manufacturing.  Brian has appeared on BBC World News and been interviewed on Bloomberg On the Economy as well as PBS.
 
Brian also serves on the board of directors of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY) and served on the BOD of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).  At NAM, Brian is on its International Economic Policy Committee and its China Policy Subcommittee.  Brian is a past Chairman of the US Copper & Brass Fabricators Council and currently a member of its BOD.  He testified on its behalf before the International Trade Commission.  Brian is currently Chairman of the Copper Development Association (CDA) and serves on the BOD of the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA).

Brian is a national leader of domestic manufacturing companies attempting to change US international trade and tax policy to help level the playing field for domestic manufacturing. 

Prior to joining Revere, Brian spent twenty-one years in the international copper mining industry with seven years each in operations, marketing & corporate administration.  

Brian is celebrating 40 years of marriage with three sons and four grandchildren.  In 2002, Mr. O’Shaughnessy rode his Harley Davidson on two-lane scenic roads from Moody Beach, Maine to Seattle, Washington stopping off in Sturgis, South Dakota.  Mr. O’Shaughnessy is an avid snow-boarder and golfer but spends most of his time working!
 

John Dittrich,
Director
American Corn Growers Assn., Nebraska 

John Dittrich has a 25-year history of farm and trade policy strategic analysis, leadership in farm and rural advocacy organizations, business creation and management, and professional and voluntary public service.

He currently farms in partnership with his brother and fellow rural leader Keith Dittrich, in Northeast Nebraska  on a 5,000 acre irrigated grain farm as a fourth generation family farmer.

He is currently a board member and Senior Policy Analyst Emeritus for the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA).  He is also a director for the Coalition for a Prosperous America. As a director for the Organization for Competitive Markets, John conceptualized and authored the strategic plan that helped link and guide manufacturing, agricultural, and labor stakeholders in Colorado Springs in 2006.  That initial linkage evolved into the Coalition for a Prosperous America under the leadership of CPA President Fred Stokes and other current CPA directors.

As ACGA Senior Policy Analyst, John was the catalyst for the development of the University of Tennessee research publication titled “Rethinking US Agricultural Policy: Changing Course to Secure Farmer Livelihoods Worldwide” released September 3, 2003. This publication comprehensively addresses the global trade debate surrounding domestic agricultural policies in many countries, and concludes that current WTO pursued policies for agriculture are fundamentally flawed.  It was presented by the University of Tennessee to non-governmental organizations during the 2006 Cancun Round of WTO trade negotiations.

As policy analyst for ACGA and Nebraska Farmers Union, Dittrich was the author of a comprehensive farm bill proposal drafted in the US Senate and scored for the 2002 farm bill debate, titled “The Family Farm Agriculture Recovery and Maintenance Act”.  This proposal recognized the unique nature of agriculture as addressed in international trade policy and domestic farm policy.

As a director and leader in Nebraska Farmers Union in 1992, John toured Nebraska with California industrialist Larry Mattera warning of the dangers of the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement to farmers and manufacturing interests.

John has served in a number of state and national leadership roles in numerous family farm and rural advocacy organizations over the past 25 years, often contributing to the formal policy development processes for many organizations, including National Farmers Union.

He is a graduate of Colorado State University, with much of his early career focused on statistical and data analysis.

John is also an active leader in his local community, serving as Vice-president on the Elkhorn Valley Schools board of education, and is the primary founder and current vice-president of the local community development foundation.

John and his wife Jeanne, a Registered Nurse has two children, Katie 19, and Jake 17.

 
Bob Baugh,
Director
AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, Washington, DC

Dave Frengel,
Treasurer
Penn United Technology, Pennsylvania

 

Joe Logan,
Director
Ohio Farmers Union, Ohio

Eric Nelson,
Director
R-CALF USA, Iowa