Conference Speaker Bios
Michael R. Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana, on June 7, 1959, one of six children born to Edward and Nancy Pence. As a young boy he had a front row seat to the American Dream. After his grandfather immigrated to the United States when he was 17, his family settled in the Midwest. The future Vice President watched his Mom and Dad build everything that matters—a family, a business, and a good name. Sitting at the feet of his mother and his father, who started a successful convenience store business in their small Indiana town, he was raised to believe in the importance of hard work, faith, and family.
Vice President Pence set off for Hanover College, earning his bachelor’s degree in history in 1981. While there, he renewed his Christian faith which remains the driving force in his life. He later attended Indiana University School of Law and met the love of his life, Second Lady Karen Pence.
After graduating, Vice President Pence practiced law, led the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and began hosting The Mike Pence Show, a syndicated talk radio show and a weekly television public affairs program in Indiana. Along the way he became the proud father to three children, Michael, Charlotte, and Audrey.
Growing up in Indiana, surrounded by good, hardworking Hoosiers, Vice President Pence always knew that he needed to give back to the state and the country that had given him so much. In 2000, he launched a successful bid for his local congressional seat, entering the United States House of Representatives at the age of 40.
The people of East-Central Indiana elected Vice President Pence six times to represent them in Congress. On Capitol Hill he established himself as a champion of limited government, fiscal responsibility, economic development, educational opportunity, and the U.S. Constitution. His colleagues quickly recognized his leadership ability and unanimously elected him to serve as Chairman of the House Republican Study Committee and House Republican Conference Chairman. In this role, the Vice President helped make government smaller and more effective, reduce spending, and return power to state and local governments.
In 2013, Vice President Pence left the nation’s capital when Hoosiers elected him the 50th Governor of Indiana. He brought the same limited government and low tax philosophy to the Indiana Statehouse. As Governor, he enacted the largest income tax cut in Indiana history, lowering individual income tax rates, the business personal property tax, and the corporate income tax in order to strengthen the State’s competitive edge and attract new investment and good-paying jobs. Due to his relentless focus on jobs, the state’s unemployment rate fell by half during his four years in office, and at the end of his term, more Hoosiers were working than at any point in the state’s 200-year history.
As Governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence increased school funding, expanded school choice, and created the first state-funded Pre-K plan in Indiana history. He made career and technical education a priority in every high school. Under Vice President Pence’s leadership, Indiana, known as “The Crossroads of America,” invested more than $800 million in new money for roads and bridges across the state. Despite the record tax cuts and new investments in roads and schools, the state remained fiscally responsible, as the Vice President worked with members of the Indiana General Assembly to pass two honestly balanced budgets that left the state with strong reserves and AAA credit ratings that were the envy of the nation.
It was Indiana’s success story, Vice President Pence’s record of legislative and executive experience, and his strong family values that prompted President Donald Trump to select Mike Pence as his running mate in July 2016. The American people elected President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence on November 8, 2016. President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence entered office on January 20, 2017.
In February 2021, Vice President Mike Pence joined the Heritage Foundation as a distinguished visiting fellow. The Heritage Foundation helped shape Vice President Mike Pence’s conservative philosophy for decades and played a pivotal role advancing conservative policies throughout the Trump Administration. Vice President Pence also joined Young America’s Foundation as the Ronald Reagan Presidential Scholar. Long before Mike Pence became Vice President to President Donald Trump, the vision and leadership of Ronald Reagan inspired his youth.
Vice President Mike Pence remains grateful for the grace of God, the love and support of his family, and the blessings of liberty that are every American’s birthright.
Paul Packer is the former Chairman United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.
Peter M. Frank, Ph.D. serves Provost and Professor of Economics at Grove City College. He taught economics for over a decade prior to serving in academic administration. His current research focuses on education and the liberal arts, entrepreneurship and economic development, tax and social policy, and comparative political economy. Additionally, he has served for many years as a Free Enterprise Fellow at the Jesse Helms Center in North Carolina, where he published economic policy research. Dr. Frank was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2012 at the Academy of Economic Studies in Chisinau, Moldova, where his teaching and research focused on micro-lending and economic development in a transition economy. He earned a BA in Economics at Grove City College, an MS in Economics at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte, and his Ph.D. at George Mason University. Prior to beginning his role at Grove City College, he most recently served as Dean of the Porter B. Byrum School of Business at Wingate University in North Carolina.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute focusing on issues regarding child welfare as well as a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. She also writes about parenting, higher education, religion, philanthropy and culture.
She is a former columnist for the New York Post and a former Wall Street Journal editor and writer, as well as the author of seven books, including, most recently, “No Way to Treat a Child: How the Foster Care System, Family Courts, and Racial Activists Are Wrecking Young Lives,” (Bombardier, 2021). Her book, Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage is Transforming America (Oxford, 2013), was named an editor’s pick by the New York Times Book Review.
Ms. Riley’s writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications. She appears regularly on FoxNews and FoxBusiness and CNBC. She has also appeared on Q&A with Brian Lamb as well as the Today Show.
She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in English and Government. She lives in the suburbs of New York with her husband, Jason, and their three children.
George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Catholic theologian and one of America’s leading public intellectuals. He holds EPPC’s William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies.
From 1989 through June 1996, Mr. Weigel was president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he led a wide-ranging, ecumenical and inter-religious program of research and publication on foreign and domestic policy issues.
Mr. Weigel is perhaps best known for his widely translated and internationally acclaimed two-volume biography of Pope St. John Paul II: the New York Times bestseller, Witness to Hope (1999), and its sequel, The End and the Beginning (2010). In 2017, Weigel published a memoir of the experiences that led to his work as a papal biographer: Lessons in Hope — My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II.
Weigel is the author or editor of more than thirty other books, many of which have been translated into other languages. Among the most recent are The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God (2005); Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church (2013); Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches (2013); Letters to a Young Catholic (2015); The Fragility of Order: Catholic Reflections on Turbulent Times (2018); The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020); and Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse Cast of Characters, Most of Them Admirable (2021). His essays, op-ed columns, and reviews appear regularly in major opinion journals and newspapers across the United States. A frequent guest on television and radio, he is also Senior Vatican Analyst for NBC News. His weekly column, “The Catholic Difference,” is syndicated to eighty-five newspapers and magazines in seven countries.
Mr. Weigel received a B.A. from St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore and an M.A. from the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto. He is the recipient of nineteen honorary doctorates in fields including divinity, philosophy, law, and social science, and has been awarded the Papal Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, Poland’s Gloria Artis Gold Medal, and Lithuania’s Diplomacy Star.
Carl Trueman is professor of humanities at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He was born in Dudley in the United Kingdom and grew up in the idyllic rural surroundings of the West Country. He has previously been a faculty member at the Universities of Nottingham and Aberdeen in the UK and Westminster Theological Seminary (PA). For the academic year of 2017 – 18, he was the William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life on the James Madison Program at Princeton University. From 2012 to 2018 he was also Pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Ambler, Pa. In his spare time he runs, listens to rock and classical music, and does what his wife tells him.
Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik is Rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel–New York’s Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, and is the founder and director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. He graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva University, and received his Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University. His podcasts include Bible365, a daily study of the Hebrew Bible that completes all of Jewish scripture in a year, and Jerusalem365, which tells the 4,000 year history of Jerusalem. These podcasts, his articles, and his lectures, can be found at meirsoloveichik.com. Rabbi Soloveichik has testified before the US Congress on the subject of the free exercise of religion, and in 2018 was awarded the Canterbury Medal by the Becket Fund.
Devorah Goldman is a co-director and the editorial mentor of the Krauthammer Fellowship, the Tikvah Visiting Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She is also a contributing editor at Mosaic, Public Discourse, and American Purpose magazines, and was the founding director of Tikvah’s Legal Fellowship. She previously worked as a legislative staffer in the Senate and as an editor at National Affairs. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, Bloomberg BNA, the New Atlantis, the Weekly Standard, and other outlets.
The Hon. Paul J. McNulty ’80 is the ninth president of Grove City College. Prior to returning to his alma mater, McNulty spent over 30 years in Washington, D.C., as an attorney in public service and private practice.
In 2006, the United States Senate unanimously confirmed McNulty to the position of Deputy Attorney General, the second in command at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Chief Operating Officer of the department’s 100,000 employees. He also served from 2001 to 2005 as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and was a leader in our nation’s response to the terrorist attacks of September 11.
McNulty also worked for more than 10 years as a senior attorney in the U.S. Congress, including as Chief Counsel and Director of Legislative Operations for the House Majority Leader and Chief Counsel for the House Subcommittee on Crime.
From 2007 to 2014, McNulty led the global corporate compliance and investigations practice for Baker McKenzie, one of the world’s largest law firms. McNulty has been recognized for his expertise in business ethics, corporate governance, and internal investigations, including being twice named by Ethisphere magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics.”
McNulty received Grove City College’s Alumni Achievement Award in 1998 and an honorary doctorate in 2007. From 2004 to 2014, he served on the College’s Board of Trustees. In 2003, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree (LLD) from Capital University School of Law where he received his juris doctorate degree in 1983. He served for 28 years as an elder in McLean and New Hope Presbyterian churches, and now serves on the board of The Trinity Forum and chairs the Getty Music Foundation.
McNulty met his wife Brenda (Millican ’80) at Grove City College. They have been blessed with four children and five grandchildren.
Michael Medved hosts a daily talk radio show and podcast that combines politics and pop culture, history and values. He is also a New York Times best-selling author of 14 nonfiction books—most recently The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic, and its follow-up God’s Hand on America: Divine Providence in the Modern Era. In this series, Michael describes astonishing incidents in which luck, nature, or some higher power seems to intervene on behalf of the United States. An honors graduate of Yale, he also attended Yale Law School and has worked as both a political speechwriter and Hollywood screenwriter. He is a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors, and his pieces appear frequently in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Commentary. Michael has lectured for religious, political, and academic audiences in all 50 states and six Canadian provinces.
As an active leader in the Jewish community, Michael has served as president of an Orthodox synagogue and co-founder of a Jewish day school. His lectures to Jewish communities frequently discuss the historic connection between America and Israel, the revival of Orthodox Judaism, and the sometimes tortured relationship between Jews and the entertainment industry.
He’s been married to Dr. Diane Medved, clinical psychologist, and best-selling author, for 37 years; they are the parents of three grown children and grandparents of the five most remarkable grandchildren on God’s Green Earth.
David H. Peiffer ’81 is an entrepreneur and businessman with more than 35 years of
expertise in trade and commerce in the Near East. As founder and president of NITCOM Inc., he is a key player in the manufacture, marketing, and sales of OEM and after-market vehicular climate systems and parts throughout the Levant, and in particular, Israel. NITCOM is a major supplier to Israeli military industries and represents some of the largest names in the mobile air conditioning industry.
In 2011, NITCOM was awarded a multi-million dollar contract with the U.S. Army to supply air conditioning-related components for the STORM III project in Israel. Currently, NITCOM is supplying climate systems for various configurations of heavy-duty military transporters.
Peiffer received an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan; attended Hebrew University as an exchange fellow; and participated in the Tel Akko archaeological excavations. He has published research in former Israeli Ambassador Itamar Rabinovitch’s book Israel in the Middle East; wrote Beyond the Green Line, a research project focusing on Israel’s strategic calculus in Judea and Samaria; and contributed to Dr. Rachel Bronson’s Arab-Israel conflict research at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.
When not in Israel, Nu Lamb fraternity member, Peiffer resides in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, with two projects of personal interest. In Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania., he headed and completed restoration of The Castle built by Dr. B.S. Erwin. The second project, the non-profit Peiffer Memorial Arboretum and Nature Preserve Inc., honors his parents for their community service in Cumberland County. David serves as the Executive Director of this non-profit organization.
In 2020, David H. Peiffer was honored by Grove City College with The Jack Kennedy Memorial Alumni Achievement Award. In the past, Peiffer volunteered for ILAN, in Israel working to raise money benefitting handicapped children. He vice-chaired the Board of Directors of ADAM, a former arm of the Israel Rabbinical Court System working with troubled families and conflict resolution. In 2002, Peiffer led the moving and
rebuilding of the Shprinzak Elementary School Library in Rehovot, Israel. David is a published author.
Peiffer is married to his wife Ravit, and has five children including alumnus, Daniel Peiffer ’18.
Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania, and a New York Times bestselling author of over 20 books. He is senior director and chief academic fellow at the Institute for Faith & Freedom and former visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His articles have appeared in publications from the Washington Post and USA Today to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. He is a longtime columnist for The American Spectator and was named editor in chief of the magazine in September 2022, to succeed founder R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. He is an internationally recognized authority on several subjects, particularly Ronald Reagan, the Cold War and communism, and the American presidency.
Dr. Kengor is frequently interviewed by the BBC, Fox News, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, EWTN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, by radio hosts such as Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, and Bill Bennett, and by TV personalities like Megyn Kelly, Bill O’Reilly, and Joe Scarborough. He often writes for National Catholic Register and Crisis Magazine.
Dr. Kengor’s books have been published by HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, Ignatius Press, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, HarperPerennial, and many others. In 2017, he released what has been described as his “magnum opus,” A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century. Among his bestsellers are the 2012 book, The Communist, and his 2004 classic, God and Ronald Reagan. Several of his books are the basis for major films, including the documentary, The Divine Plan (Robert Orlando, producer), which screened in theaters nationwide in 2019, and the upcoming bio-pic Reagan: The Movie, starring Dennis Quaid and David Henrie. In August 2020, he released his latest The Devil and Karl Marx (TAN Books/St. Benedict Press).
Kengor is a frequent public speaker, at venues such as the Ronald Reagan Library, the Reagan Ranch Center, National Press Club, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the Gerald Ford Library, the National Presbyterian Church, the John Paul II National Shrine, and at colleges from the University of Virginia to William & Mary to the Naval Academy to Notre Dame University to Princeton University.
Kengor received his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and master’s degree from The American University’s School of International Service. He holds an honorary doctorate from Franciscan University. He and his wife, Susan, have eight children, two of which are adopted.