Liberty Chats The Steamboat Institute

Steamboat Emerging Leaders Council Member Steven Hjelm sits down with Daniel Pae, Oklahoma's 62nd District Representative to talk about his time in office and his focus in policies during his time as the youngest serving member of the state Legislature at 23 years old.

Host Gabe Woolley, member of The Steamboat Institute's Emerging Leaders Council interviews Oklahoma State Superintendent, Ryan Walters. In a 15 minute excerpt of an hour long discussion, Gabe sits down with Ryan and talks about the major aspects of Oklahoma and American education.

Ryan Walters taught eight years as a high school history teacher in his hometown at McAlester High School (MHS). During his time at MHS, Walters taught Advanced Placement (AP) courses in World History, U.S. History and U.S. Government. He also taught on-level history classes, special education classes and Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) classes. 
The Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) named Walters as an Oklahoma Teacher of the Year Finalist in 2016. He is passionate about the students of Oklahoma and advocating for their immediate and long-term success. 

In September 2020, Governor Kevin Stitt named Walters as Secretary of Public Education. As Secretary of Education, he was responsible for various agencies, boards, and commissions, including the State Board of Education, College and University Boards of Regents or Trustees, Office of Educational Quality and Accountability and the State Board of Career and Technology Education. 

Walters taught AP U.S. History at Millwood High School and McAlester High School. He is empowering teachers, parents and community leaders to improve Oklahoma’s education system for all students and previously served as Executive Director of Oklahoma Achieves, an education initiative of the State Chamber of Oklahoma that sought to get the business community more actively engaged in education. 

He is a lifelong advocate of improving Oklahoma’s education system and helping every student reach their full potential. 

A loving husband to his wife Katie, Walters has four children — Violet (6), Ella (4), Benjamin (2) and newborn Samuel.

To watch the full interview with Ryan and Gabe, go to https://youtu.be/vz4xsA20O6o?si=_AVNnpkp-NHvqtqd

Subscribe to The Steamboat Institute Newsletter: https://www.steamboatinstitute.org/update/sign-up-for-newsletter-updates/

Host Karl Honegger, member of The Steamboat Institute's Emerging Leaders Council Alumni Board interviews entrepreneur and educator, Lily Tang Williams. She is  fighting to prevent the country she loves from becoming the country she left.

 Lily Tang Williams was a law school assistant professor at Fudan University, Shanghai, China who became an American entrepreneur and an educator. She is currently co-chair of the New Hampshire Asian American Coalition, elected Supervisor of the Checklist in Town of Weare, NH. She has been married to John Williams for 31 years and they have three adult children.


Born to illiterate working-class parents in China’s western Sichuan province just before Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Lily Tang Williams grew up experiencing extremely poor living conditions, food rationing, social chaos, and Communist indoctrination.


She learned to work hard, persevere, and be grateful for the opportunities she was given. Eventually, she graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai with an undergraduate law degree. After graduation, she was selected to continue as part of the law school faculty, as well as practice corporate law in Shanghai as China began to rebuild its economy.



In 1988, Lily Tang Williams decided to study in the U.S., leaving her position with only $100 in her pocket and $1200 in debt to her American sponsor, a Fulbright professor at the University of Texas at Austin.  Though she could not speak English fluently she was determined to achieve success in this country, earning a Master’s degree in Administration and Planning from the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. 



Subsequently, Lily started work for Wyoming Home Health as a medical social worker, and later she worked as an executive for corporations in both Hong Kong and the U.S. Eventually, she went into business for herself, providing consulting and expert witness services in China-related business and legal cases. She and her husband also manage residential real estate properties they own.



Subscribe to The Steamboat Institute Newsletter: https://www.steamboatinstitute.org/update/sign-up-for-newsletter-updates/

Host Karl Honegger, member of The Steamboat Institute's Emerging Leaders Council Alumni Board, kicks off season 2 of Liberty Chats speaking with Writer and Director, Jimmy Morrison, about Grid Down, Power Up, a documentary that brings to light the urgency to save the U.S.power grid, starring Dennis Quaid. Jimmy created the motion graphics for the film. 

Grid failure is a real and imminent threat, a devastatingly deadly occurrence leading to life-threatening shortages of heat, food, and water. If protective measures are not taken, we will experience catastrophic failures leaving citizens in states of starvation, death, destruction, and darkness for months. Reports released from Texas’ 3-day “snowmageddon” indicate a minimum death toll of 246, with some estimates climbing as high as 702. An outage of 1-2 years would lead to 10,000,000+ deaths. One thing is evident: the clock is ticking, and if nothing changes, the power may go out for good…
 
Learn more about the Grid Down, Power Up at: https://griddownpowerup.com/#about

Subscribe to The Steamboat Institute Newsletter: https://www.steamboatinstitute.org/update/sign-up-for-newsletter-updates/

Host Anastasia Ratcliff, member of The Steamboat Institute's Emerging Leaders Council, interviews Grace-Marie Turner, who leads the Galen Institute, a public policy research organization that she founded in 1995 to promote an informed debate over free-market ideas for health reform. Anastasia and Grace-Marie discuss aspects of the healthcare system in America and how policy coincides with the work of the Galen Institute. They also dive into the discussion of the importance of having a diverse market of healthcare options for people to choose from and the competitiveness that creates among companies. 
Grace-Marie Turner runs the Galen Institute, a public policy research organization that she founded in 1995 to promote an informed debate over free-market ideas for health reform.
She has been instrumental in developing and promoting ideas for reform to transfer power over health care decisions to doctors and patients.  She speaks and writes extensively about incentives to promote a more competitive, patient-centered marketplace in the health sector.
She testifies regularly before Congress and advises senior government officials, governors, and state legislators on health policy. She was named by the Speaker of the House to serve as a member of the Long Term Care Commission in 2013. Previously, Grace-Marie served for a three-year term on the National Advisory Board for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and she served as a member of the Medicaid Commission, making recommendations to modernize and improve Medicaid.Grace-Marie Turner was named one of “Washington’s 500 Most Influential People” in 2022 by Washingtonian magazine for the second year in a row. She has been published in hundreds of major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today, and has appeared on countless radio and television programs. She edited Empowering Health Care Consumers through Tax Reform and has contributed to numerous other books. She speaks widely, including at Harvard University, the London School of Economics, Oxford University, and the Gregorian University at the Vatican.
Grace-Marie is founder and facilitator of the Health Policy Consensus Group which serves as a forum for analysts from market-oriented think tanks around the country to analyze and develop policy recommendations.  She serves on the boards of the Steamboat Institute and the Winston Fellowship and is a volunteer policy advisor to the Catholic Medical Association, Paragon Health Institute, Docs4PatientCare, and other organizations.
In the mid-1990s, Grace-Marie served as executive director of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform. For 12 years, she was president of Arnett & Co., a health policy analysis and communications firm. Her early career was in politics and journalism where she received numerous awards for her writings on policy, politics and economics.
Learn more about the Galen Institute at: 
https://galen.org/ 
Subscribe to The Steamboat Institute Newsletter: https://www.steamboatinstitute.org/update/sign-up-for-newsletter-updates/

Host Domine Clemons, member of The Steamboat Institute's Emerging Leaders Council, interviews Erika Donalds, CEO of Optima Ed,  on the recent success of Optima Ed's virtual reality school.  They also dive into the value of Classical Education methods and how we can maximize educational freedom and school choice. 

Erika Donalds, CPA and CGMA,  is the Chief Executive Officer of Optima Ed, an education experience company dedicated to expanding high quality school choice. A mother of three boys and former finance executive with a passion for education, she has offered her expertise in business to help further the expansion of parental choice and to improve accountability and governance in Florida’s public schools. 
Prior to launching Optima, Erika was Chief Financial Officer/Chief Compliance Officer and Partner at DGHM​, an investment management firm. She served with the company for almost 20 years and was responsible for the finance, compliance, and operations, in addition to serving on the firm’s Management Committee. Erika holds a BS in Accounting from Florida State University and a Masters in Accountancy from Florida Atlantic University. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA).
Erika is a former elected member of the Collier County School Board. During her tenure, she co-founded the Florida Coalition of School Board Members and served as the group’s President. She was appointed to Florida’s 2017-2018 Constitution Revision Commission by then-Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran, and recently served on Governor DeSantis’ Advisory Committee on Education and Workforce Development.
Erika now serves on the Florida Gulf Coast University Board of Trustees, and on advisory boards for Classical Learning Test, Moms for Liberty, and the Independent Women’s Forum Education Freedom Center.

Learn more about the Optima Foundation and Optima Ed at: https://optimaed.org/

Subscribe to The Steamboat Institute Newsletter: https://www.steamboatinstitute.org/update/sign-up-for-newsletter-updates/