The State Policy Network Board of Directors voted June 2024 to elect Board Member since 2015 Lawson Bader as the new Chairman of the Board. Bader’s term will begin January 1, 2025.
The announcement also marks a transition for long-time Board Chairman Carl Helstrom. He will continue to work closely with SPN and the Board of Directors to ensure a successful transition. In January he will serve SPN in a new capacity as Senior Advisor, using his decades of experience to build peer-level programs and best practices for other Boards of Directors in the Network.
“We thank Carl for his tremendous service and wise leadership over the last 25 years as Chairman,” said long-time President and CEO Tracie Sharp, “We are fortunate to have him join our team as it allows us to strengthen and deepen programs and services we provide to ensure the effective governance and durability of the organizations in our Network.”
Helstrom joined SPN’s board in 1997 and was elected chair in 1999. At that time, the Network consisted of 36 state think tanks with $15 million in combined revenues. Today, SPN has over 200 think tank members and partners, including 63 independent, state-focused think tanks operating in all 50 states. There are over 1,000 full-time Network Affiliate staff with combined revenues exceeding $194 million. During that time SPN’s own staff has grown to over 60 full-time staff and revenues of over $27 million with $10 million in grants going to Network partners to support the growth of their independent organizations’ capabilities.
“SPN’s success over the years can be traced back to Carl’s early work with our staff leadership to restructure the organization and enact bylaws that positioned us to be more effective,” said Sharp who has worked with Helstrom since she became President in 1999. “It was that essential foundation from which SPN’s uniquely valuable services and resources have supplied and helped to build this influential and growing Network.”
The newly elected Chairman of the Board Lawson Bader has served on the SPN board since 2015. Bader has longstanding connections with the Network thanks to his current work as president and CEO of DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund and the twenty years prior that he spent leading free-market research and education groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is the former president of the co-creation incubator Antigua Forum at Universidad Francisco Marroquín (SPN’s LaunchPad project is modeled after Antigua Forum). Bader is a member of Mont Pelerin Society and serves on the governing boards of Atlas Network and Our America.
On his new role, Bader said, “Working closely with SPN and the entire Network has always been a career highlight. After serving on its Board for nearly ten years, I am delighted to serve in this new capacity as the SPN board chairman. The states remain the best hope for this country – and SPN, along with its brilliant and creative network of independent state-focused Affiliates, remains the best hope to ensure we continue to be a nation guided by the Tocquevillian ideas of opportunity, individual freedom, and local governance. SPN has accomplished much these past decades, and I look forward to the continued opportunity to accomplish much more.”
