Sally C. Pipes is president and chief executive officer of the Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank founded in 1979. Prior to becoming president in 1991, she was assistant director of the Fraser Institute, based in Vancouver, Canada.

Ms. Pipes addresses national and international audiences on health care, women’s issues, and the economy. She has been interviewed on ABC’s 20/20 with John Stossel; CNN’s Lou Dobbs Show; Fox News “Glenn Beck Show;” NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams”; Fox Business Network; “The O’Reilly Factor,” Fox News “Your World With Neil Cavuto”, “The Today Show;” “Kudlow & Company on CNBC, “Dateline;” “Politically Incorrect;” “The Dennis Miller Show;” and other prominent programs.

She has written regular columns for Chief Executive and Investor’s Business Daily. Currently, she writes a monthly column on health care issues for the Examiner newspapers. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Financial Times of London, The Hill, RealClearPolitics, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, U.S. News and World Report, the Boston Globe, and the San Diego Union-Tribune, to name a few. Ms. Pipes’ views on health care appeared in a special report of the world’s 30 leading health care experts published by Forbes.com entitled, “Solutions: Health Care." She was quoted in Shape Magazine and in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on her health care views.

Ms. Pipes writes, speaks, debates, and gives invited testimony at the national and state levels on key health-care issues facing America. Topics include the false promise of a single-payer system as exists in Canada, pharmaceutical pricing, solving the problem of the uninsured, and strategies for consumer-driven health care. Ms. Pipes debated Paul Krugman, Princeton economics professor and New York Times columnist, in New York at Rockefeller University. She was on the opposing side of the motion “Universal Health Coverage is the Responsibility of the Federal Government.” Sponsored by Intelligence Squared, the debate was attended by 450 people and will be viewed by 270 million around the world through NPR and BBC Worldwide. She was one of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s four health care advisors in his bid for the Republican nomination for president. She appears in Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” and has participated in prominent debates and public forums, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, committees of the California and Oregon legislatures, appeared on popular television programs, participated in talk radio shows nationwide, and had 203 op-eds published on health care issues in 2008.

Her first book, Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer with a foreword by Milton Friedman was released September 28, 2004. It is available on Amazon.com. In October 2008, her second book The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen’s Guide was released. It has been widely reviewed and quoted. Over 700,000 copies have been downloaded from PRI’s website and 4,500 copies have been sold on Amazon. Thomas Sowell in his syndicated column for Creators Syndicate wrote of the book “Before you do anything else, make a note to read The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care. It might literally save your life. She also co-authored with Michael Walker seven editions of the Fraser Institute’s Tax Facts.

Ms. Pipes served on the Medical Advisory Council of Genworth Financial’s Long-Term Care Insurance Division in 2006, the national advisory board of Capital Research Center, the Advisory Board of the California Association of Scholars, and the State Policy Network president’s advisory council. She has served as a trustee of St. Luke’s Hospital Foundation in San Francisco, a board member of the Independent Women’s Forum, and as a governor of the Donner Canadian Foundation. She was a member of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s transition team in 2003-04.

She received the Roe Award at the 2004 annual meeting of State Policy Network. The award is a tribute to an individual in the state public policy movement who has a passion for liberty, a willingness to work for it, and noteworthy achievement in turning dreams into realities. In 2005, she was named one of the Top 10 Women in the Conservative Movement in America as published by Human Events. In 2008, she was honored by the California Women’s Leadership Association. She received the 3rd Annual Women Achievers’ award, “Celebrating the Spirit of Women”. She was also featured in a new book “Women Who Paved the Way” as one of 35 most outstanding women in business in the nation. In August 2009, she was invited by Canada’s Minister of Finance to participate in his “Third Annual Summer Policy Retreat” at Meech Lake in Quebec. The three-day event was attended by a small group of professors, think tank presidents, and small business leaders.

Ms. Pipes, who became an American citizen in 2006, is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. While in Canada she was a member of the Canadian Association for Business Economics (president for two terms).

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John R. Graham
Director, Health Care Studies

John R. Graham is Director of Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of the U.S. Index of Health Ownership, the only project to rank all 50 states’ health laws and regulations according to free-market principles; and the editor of a book addressing What States Can Do to Reform Health Care: A Free Market Primer, to which he contributed a chapter on pharmaceutical cost containment.

He is also the primary author of the monthly Health Policy Prescriptions series, which addresses national health reform, and contributes to PRI's Capital Ideas series of short articles on public policy in California.  He has written numerous articles covering diverse topics within health policy for periodicals including the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.  He blogs frequently at Free American Health Care and State House Call.

Mr. Graham speaks frequently on health care reform on radio and television, and at conferences in the United States, Canada, and Europe. He has also worked as a management consultant and investment banker in Canada and Europe and has previously served as an infantry officer in the Canadian Army in Canada, Germany, and Cyprus.

He received his M.B.A. from the London Business School ( England) and his B.A. (with Honors) in economics and commerce from the Royal Military College of Canada.

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Lance Izumi
Koret Senior Fellow in Education Studies; Senior Director, Education Studies

Koret Senior Fellow in Education Studies
Senior Director, Education Studies

Lance T. Izumi is Koret Senior Fellow and Senior Director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI), California’s premier free-market public-policy think tank based in San Francisco. He is the co-author of the book Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice (San Francisco, CA: Pacific Research Institute, 2007), which has been praised by publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Education Week.

He is co-executive producer of the 2009 PRI full-length film documentary Not as Good As You Think: The Myth of the Middle Class School, which is based on his 2007 book. In 2008, The New York Times selected Mr. Izumi to be one of its online contributors on the presidential race and education issues. In 2009, The New York Times posted “Sweden’s Choice,” a video op-ed written and narrated by Mr. Izumi, which has garnered critical praise.

He is also the co-author of the book Free to Learn: Lessons from Model Charter Schools (San Francisco, CA: Pacific Research Institute 2005), which has been used as a guidebook for creating high-performing charter schools in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Izumi is the author/co-author of numerous major PRI studies, including the "California Education Report Card: Index of Leading Education Indicators" (1997, 2000, 2003 and 2007 editions), "Failing our Future: The Holes in California’s School Accountability System and How to Fix Them" (2006), "Putting Education to the Test: A Value-Added Model for California" (2004). "They Have Overcome: High-Poverty, High-Performing Schools in California" (2002), "Facing the Classroom Challenge: Teacher Quality and Teacher Training in California’s Schools of Education" (2001), and "Developing and Implementing Academic Standards" (1999).

In November 2008, Mr. Izumi was elected to a second term as president of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, which is the largest system of higher education in the nation. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger initially appointed Mr. Izumi to the Board in 2004 and re-appointed him in 2009.

In 2008, the United States Army appointed Mr. Izumi to its Southern California Advisory Board Executive Committee.  In that capacity, Mr. Izumi assists the Army with its community outreach, image enhancement, and recruiting efforts.

In 2007, Mr. Izumi was named to the California Advisory Committee of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. In 2003, United States secretary of education Rod Paige appointed Mr. Izumi to the Teacher Assistance Corps, a task force of experts assigned to review state teacher quality plans as they relate to the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Mr. Izumi is the co-editor of two books: Teacher Quality (Hoover Institution Press and Pacific Research Institute, 2002) and School Reform: The Critical Issues (Hoover Institution Press and Pacific Research Institute, 2001).

For ten years, Mr. Izumi was a regular contributor to the "Perspectives" opinion series on KQED-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate in San Francisco.

Prior to going into the think-tank world, Mr. Izumi served as chief speechwriter and director of writing and research for California Governor George Deukmejian. He also served in the administration of President Ronald Reagan as speechwriter to United States Attorney General Edwin Meese III.

Mr. Izumi served as an officer, holding the rank of captain, in the California State Military Reserve. During his service, Mr. Izumi was awarded the commendation medal and the achievement ribbon.

Mr. Izumi received his juris doctorate from the University of Southern California School of Law and his master of arts in political science from the University of California at Davis. He received his bachelor of arts in economics and history from the University of California at Los Angeles.

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Dr. Steven F. Hayward
Senior Fellow, Environmental Studies

Dr. Steven Hayward is the author of PRI’s annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, a major study on the state of the environment released each year on Earth Day. He is also nationally recognized for his recently released book, The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order 1964-1980 (Prima Publishing, 2001), and Churchill on Leadership: Executive Success in the Face of Adversity (Prima Publishing, 1997).

Dr. Hayward writes frequently on a wide range of issues, including environmentalism, law, economics, and public policy, and has published dozens of articles in scholarly and popular journals. His work has appeared in National Review, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Reason, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, and Chicago Tribune. He is a Weyerhaeuser Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an adjunct fellow of the John Ashbrook Center and a former Bradley Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Weaver Fellow of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Earhart Fellow, and Olive Garvey Fellow of the Mont Pelerin Society.

Dr. Hayward holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and a M.A. in Government from Claremont Graduate School.

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Amy Kaleita
Public Policy Fellow, Environmental Studies

Environmental Studies Fellow Amy Kaleita is an assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering at Iowa State University.

Dr. Kaleita holds a B.S. in agricultural engineering from Penn State University, an M.S. from the University of Illinois in civil engineering, with an emphasis on environmental hydrology, and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in agricultural engineering, with an emphasis on agricultural technology development for environmental conservation.

Dr. Kaleita is involved in scientific research on impacts of agriculture on the environment, as well as on environmental monitoring and modeling.

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