SAN FRANCISCO – (Excerpt from speech presented by Tracie Sharp, President of the State Policy Network, during the Roe Award ceremony honoring Sally C. Pipes in Austin, Texas on October 22, 2004.)

The annual Roe Award is a tribute to an individual in the state public policy movement who reflects these characteristics — a passion for liberty, a willingness to work for it, and noteworthy achievement in turning dreams into realities. Appropriately, the Roe award is an eagle, a symbol of liberty, and of the courage and conviction required to preserve it.

That symbol is especially fitting for the recipient of this year’s Roe Award. She attacks her work with a robust energy. If I had to write a tagline that sums up this woman’s many strengths, I think it would be: “She gets the job done!” Let me tell you why.

Back in 1991, at the urging of two close friends, she left her homeland, came to America, and signed on as president of a book publishing house. It was a small operation with a staff of five and a budget of half a million dollars, and served an academic audience.

She immediately recruited a team of leading experts in the fields education, the environment, health care, taxes, regulation, social policy, and technology, and using the news media expanded the audience for their work to the grassroots.

Today her organization has a staff of nearly 25, a budget of $4.3 million, and is a powerhouse of “ideas in action.”

That is because the recipient of this year’s Roe Award is herself a powerhouse of ideas in action. The two good friends who urged her to leave her homeland were Rose and Milton Friedman. The homeland is Canada. The organization is the Pacific Research Institute.

And the powerhouse is, of course, Sally Pipes.