Jason Stverak, President

Jason Stverak is the President of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

Prior to Franklin Center, he was Regional Field Director for the Sam Adams Alliance, where he worked with state groups and associations committed to promoting the free market policies. Jason also served as North Dakota Executive Director for the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee and spent six years as the Executive Director of the North Dakota Republican Party. Jason is a lifetime member of the association of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

A native of Rapid City, SD, he received his BA in Foreign Service and Slavic Studies from Baylor University in 1996 with a minor in economics.

Email: jason.stverak@franklincenterhq.org

Gwen Beattie

Gwen Beattie is Director of Development and Donor Relations for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.  She began her career working as a Gubernatorial Appointments Specialist during Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore’s administration. She continued in state government as an Human Resources Specialists in the Attorney General’s Office where she was responsible for recruitment and coordination of the office’s multiple intern programs.

In 2006, Gwen moved to Washington, D.C. where she served as Director of Communications and Fundraising at the Washington Legal Foundation, a free enterprise legal advocacy think tank.

Gwen is a native of Chilhowie, Virginia and received her BA in political science from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph College), with minors in religion and history.

Email: gwen.beattie(@)franklincenterhq.org

Earl F. Glynn, Kansas Watchdog

Earl Glynn has a background in research and development and has worked on a variety of R&D projects over the last three decades including EPA hazardous waste sites, wind energy on farms, classified research for the federal government, pharmaceutical research, software in medical devices, and bioinformatics. For the last five years Earl blogged as the Kansas Meadowlark mostly about topics involving Kansas government accountability, transparency, and ethics. Earl will combine his research, analysis, and computer skills both in helping at the Franklin Center and in investigative reports on the Kansas Watchdog site.

Email: earl.glynn(@)franklincenterhq.org

Andrew W. Griffin, Oklahoma Watchdog

Andrew W. Griffin, a native of Wichita, Kansas and now working in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is a professional journalist who has spent more than a decade working for daily newspapers throughout the southern United States. In 2006, Andrew left his court beat reporting position at The Lawton Constitution in Lawton, Okla. and started an Oklahoma-centric website called RedDirtReport.com while continuing to work as a freelance journalist.

Andrew is excited to be continue his investigative reporting work at Red Dirt Report and the new Oklahoma Watchdog website. Andrew lives in Oklahoma City with his wife Monica and their three cats.

Email: andrew.griffin@franklincenterhq.org

Elizabeth Hillgrove

Elizabeth Hillgrove is a staff writer and researcher with the Franklin Center. Ms. Hillgrove’s passion for journalism and politics evolved from her interest in history and literature. Ms. Hillgrove received her training from the National Journalism Center in Washington D.C. She then served as a beat reporter with the Washington Times before earning a Koch Summer Fellowship with the Sam Adams Alliance.

Ms. Hillgrove graduated from James Madison University with a major in English literature and minor in Studio Art. Ms. Hillgrove’s artwork has been featured in several art shows in the Virginia area, in addition to her frontpage stories and bylines. She also dedicates some of her time volunteering with Christian and athletic groups

Email: elizabeth.hillgrove@franklincenterhq.org

Joe Jordan, Nebraska Watchdog

Joe Jordan has spent the past 36 years as an investigative-political reporter, on both radio and television. Joe has worked in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and for the past 29 years in Nebraska (KMTV Omaha, CBS). During that time Joe has interviewed the nation’s top newsmakers and Presidents from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama.

He’s covered several national political conventions, along with seven Nebraska Governors and 10 Omaha Mayors. He’s received numerous journalism awards including the Walter Cronkite Award for Political Journalism on Television, and Columbia University’s Dupont Award for Investigations.

The Cronkite Award recognized Joe’s work in exposing a nationwide political scandal. One of the country’s leading pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer, teamed up with several members of Congress to produce what was billed as a series of public service announcements (for patients seeking prescription drugs at reduced prices). In reality, however, the ads served as nothing more than campaign commercials, representing a potentially illegal campaign contribution by Pfizer to the congressmen appearing on-screen.

The Dupont Award also recognized Joe’s work that uncovered extensive abuse of patients inside an Omaha area home for the physically and mentally handicapped.

Email: joe(@)nebraskawatchdog.org

Frank Keegan

Frank Keegan is a national editor at the Franklin Center, who believes the most important thread in America’s “garment of destiny” is a free and vigorous press. We the People cannot govern ourselves unless we are informed. Keegan committed his life early to the mission of informing the People honestly, objectively and equitably no matter what the consequences.

A native of Memphis, Tenn., he moved to Indiana in high school and went to Purdue University where he was a photographer, reporter and photo editor of the Exponent, the daily student newspaper. The administration shut the paper down and took control because of probes into activities of the quasi-public Purdue Research Foundation.

He became a stringer for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, which then hired him as a regional reporter and photographer. While reporting for the Journal & Courier he was arrested once covering an illegally closed custody hearing, and again when police restricted access to a criminal trial. In both cases the state dropped all charges. At the Journal & Courier he was promoted to assistant city editor and city editor.

His first editor’s job was at the Sturgis Journal in Michigan. He later served as editor in Chambersburg, Pa., Bristol, Conn., Easton, Pa., and Bridgeport, Conn. In 2006 he helped launch the Baltimore Examiner, a revolutionary free-distribution newspaper that quickly rose to more than 400,000 daily and 640,000 Sunday readers, and a Web site with more than 300,000 uniques and 1.1 million page views a month. Baltimore Police arrested Keegan in his home less than a week after the Examiner published full department payroll data on its Web site and called for overtime cost control in an editorial. The state dropped all charges a month later. The Examiner closed this year.

Among his many state and national journalism awards, he is proud to have been fired three times, arrested three times, to have prevailed in overturning illegal arrest of one of his photographers, and to have won numerous freedom of information and libel fights.

Now he is looking for new sustainable models to help citizens cut through rising background noise and inform the People as America’s garment of destiny weaves into its third century.

Bill McMorris

Bill McMorris is a staff researcher and writer at the Franklin Center. A print journalist by training, he has written for the Santa Barbara News-Press, National Review Online and the National Journalism Center. While in Santa Barbara, Mr. McMorris produced a wide range of investigative work. His on-site coverage of a November 2008 wildfire revealed that the city had lost nearly ten times more homes than the fire department initially told the public. He also investigated charges of power abuse against the city’s police chief, as well as pay increases at the District Attorney’s Office following a series of lay-offs. Mr. McMorris was educated at Cornell University where he majored in government and history. When he is not reporting, he is trying to pay for a wedding.

Email: bill.mcmorris(@)franklincenterhq.org

Scott Reeder

Scott Reeder is a regional managing editor for the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity.

Prior to accepting this position he was the statehouse bureau chief for a chain of newspapers owned by the Small family of Kankakee, Ill.

He opened the statehouse bureau in 1999 to provide custom statehouse coverage for the Illinois communities served by newspapers in Kankakee, Ottawa, Streator, Moline and Rock Island.

He routinely uses a different approach to statehouse reporting by striving to show the impact of complex legislative issues on ordinary people. He also takes an historical perspective, looking at the effect of past legislative decisions today.

For example the award-winning investigation, “The Hidden Costs of Tenure” was an in-depth analysis of the 1985 Illinois school reforms, which were intended to bring greater accountability to the classroom. He lectured nationally on open records issues after the story ran.

Mr. Reeder grew up on a farm near Galesburg and during the past 24 years has held positions with newspapers in Iowa, Illinois, Texas and Nevada. He received his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Iowa State University and holds a master’s degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield. He and his wife, Joan, reside near Springfield and have two daughters, Grace and Anna.

Email: scott.reeder@franklincenterhq.org

James Skyles

James Skyles is the Director of Operations for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.  He is responsible for the day to day management of the Franklin Center.  James has worked in non-profit management since 2001.  Prior to coming to Franklin Center, James worked for the Center for International Rehabilitation.  He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Illinois,  a law degree from Ave Maria School of Law, and a Diploma in European and Global Practice (summa cum laude) from Central European University.  Outside of work, James sings in his church choir, and occasionally blogs on securities law.

Email: james.skyles(@)franklincenterhq.org

Paige Winfield, Old Dominion Watchdog

Paige Winfield resides in Arlington, Virginia, where she reports and blogs for Watchdog.org.  She graduated from Wheaton College (Illinois) in 2006 with degrees in history, economics and music.

Before joining the Franklin Center in August, she reported for the Naperville Sun–a daily newspaper in the Chicago suburbs. In addition to covering the 18-member DuPage County Board, she wrote news stories about politics, elections, state legislators, local businesses and community events. She has appeared on Fox News and MSNBC and reported from Washington, D.C. and Springfield, Illinois. In 2006, she completed an intensive journalism training program through the World Journalism Institute in New York.

Email: paige.winfield@franklincenterhq.org

Marta Hummel Mossburg, Franklin Center Fellow

Marta is a columnist for The Washington Examiner and starting in January, The Baltimore Sun. She regularly breaks stories about waste and fraud in the Maryland government and won the 2007 “best editorial”

prize from the Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association for her work as editorial page editor of The Baltimore Examiner. She focuses her work for the Franklin Center on showing how crony capitalism undermines a free market system and hinders prosperity for all Americans.

Her work has prompted recognition in The Washington Post, BBC and an editorial in the Wall Street Journal on Maryland’s high tax rates. She appears weekly on local television and talk radio, including Fox and the local NPR affiliate.