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Paul T. Mero

Paul T. Mero is currently president of the Sutherland Institute, a conservative public policy think-tank in Utah. Prior to his service at Sutherland, Paul was the Executive Vice-President of The Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society in Rockford, Illinois, where, among other duties, he administered the Second World Congress of Families meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in 1999. Paul also worked in the United States Congress serving two conservative House members from 1987 to 1997. He has written many articles and given many speeches in his career and he has recently finished co-authoring a book with Allan C. Carlson on the Natural Family. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and currently resides in Sandy, Utah. Paul and his wife, Sally, have six children and three grandchildren.

Liv O. Moffat

Liv Moffat joins Sutherland as Development Director after fundraising for the Utah Republican Party for three years. She has worked for many candidates ranging from local representatives to President George W. Bush. The 2002 Olympic Winter Games brought the world to Salt Lake City and Liv helped organize Utah’s Hospitality Center and Governor Leavitt’s opening and closing ceremony parties. She is also involved with the International Model United Nations Association, where she has served for three years on their Board of Directors, and is currently chairman. In the summer of 2004, Liv was honored to be named one of “10 Women Sure to Change Utah” by Salt Lake magazine.

Jeffrey L. Reynolds

Jeff comes to the Sutherland Institute after spending the past 14 years in collegiate athletics administration, including nearly 10 years as the director of media relations for the BYU football program. Among his many responsibilities and accomplishments, Jeff was involved in managing the publicity efforts during the retirement season of Hall-of-Fame coach LaVell Edwards. He also created and managed the national campaign for Doak Walker Award winner and consensus All-American Luke Staley. During his tenure at BYU, Jeff was an adjunct faculty member, teaching management communications in the Marriott School of Management. Prior to his service at BYU, Jeff was the assistant commissioner of the Mid-Continent Conference in Chicago, Illinois. He also worked for the Sun Belt Conference in New Orleans as the assistant director of media services. Following his graduation from Utah State University, Jeff served as a graduate assistant in the sports information office at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Jeff and his wife, Char'Ree, are the parents of six children.

David Kimball

Dave comes to Sutherland having worked for the past three years in athletics communications roles with Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University. A Utah native, he grew up in West Valley City and later in Layton. Dave graduated from BYU in 2007 where he earned a B.A. in communications, with an emphasis in public relations, and a Spanish minor.

Derek Monson

Derek Monson graduated from Brigham Young University in August 2007 with Bachelors degrees in Economics and Political Science. Derek began working for Sutherland Institute as a policy analyst in May 2007 and brings with him a specialty in quantitative research methods and a background in Utah issues. Derek plans to obtain a Ph.D. in Economics, with a focus on tax policy and family. He is married to Melanie, who graduated from BYU in 2008 with a BA in Marriage, Family, and Human Development.

Lisa Montgomery

Lisa Montgomery is a graduate of Brigham Young University with a BA in History/Art History. She spent the last six years in Texas where she became a licensed financial representative working for the largest independent financial advisor for military families. Lisa recently moved back to Utah and started with the Sutherland Institute in November 2003.

Matthew C. Piccolo

Matthew Piccolo earned a Master of Public Policy from Pepperdine University in April 2008, specializing in American politics and economics, where he was also founder and editor-in-chief of Pepperdine Policy Review. In 2007, he was a Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow and an Intern in Business and Economics Studies at the Pacific Research Institute in Sacramento, California. Matthew has also worked at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. and Family Health International in Arlington, Virginia and earned a B.S. in International Finance from Brigham Young University.

Stan Rasmussen

Stan Rasmussen brings to Sutherland thirty years experience in management, training, and performance coaching. He has worked extensively with clients in the legal, healthcare, environmental, banking and manufacturing industries, and with agencies in the public sector. Stan's areas of focus include the Institute's legislative efforts and the Sutherland Transcend Series, a statesmanship development program for elected officials and interested community and business leaders. He and his wife, Chris, have three sons and two grandchildren.

Jim Giometta

Jim spent 30 years in the logistics/transportation industry where he managed employees and drivers for Knox Motor System and ANR/Advance Transportation. After retiring from logistics, he started his own judgment collection business where he helped clients collect legal judgments awarded to them. Jim comes to us from Illinois where he was actively engaged in the community on many levels. He and his wife, Marry, have four children: Laura, Jason, Julianna and Rachel.

Allan C. Carlson

Dr. Allan C. Carlson is the director for Sutherland Institute's Center for Community and Economy. Dr. Carlson inagurated the World Congress of families in 1997. The founder of the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, he has served as a distinguished fellow at the Family Research Council. The author of nine books, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, Touchstone, and Intercollegiate Review, and is the editor of The Family in America.

Bryce Christensen

A native of Mt. Pleasant, Utah, Bryce Christensen grew up in Provo, where he attended Provo High School. After serving an LDS mission in upstate New York, he married Mary Cox in 1977. Upon completing his B.A. and M.A. in English at Brigham Young University, Dr. Christensen earned his Ph.D. at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr. Christensen has since 2001 been a member of SUU’s English department, where he is now assistant professor of English composition. Deeply interested in family issues, Dr. Christensen is the author of Utopia Against the Family (Ignatius, 1990) and Divided We Fall: Family Discord and the Fracturing of America (Transaction, 2005). He has also published articles on family issues in Society, The Public Interest, Policy Review, Modern Age, and other journals. He and his wife are the parents of three sons and the grandparents of one grandson.

William C. Duncan

William C. Duncan is director of Sutherland Institute's Center for Family and Society and also serves as the director for the Marriage Law Foundation. He formerly served as acting director of the Marriage Law Project at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law and as executive director of the Marriage and Family Law Research Grant at J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, where he also served as a visiting professor. He has published numerous articles on constitutional and family law issues in a variety of legal journals.

John Merrifield

Dr. John Merrifield is a member of the economics faculty at the University of Texas at San Antonio, a position he has held since 1987. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at Sutherland Institute. He has authored The School Choice Wars, School Choices, Parental Choice as an Education Reform Catalyst: Global Lessons, 37 peer-reviewed journal articles, and several chapters in edited books in his primary teaching and research fields of Education Economics, Urban and Regional Economics, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, and Public Choice. Dr. Merrifield received a BS in Natural Resource Management from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1977, a MA in Economic Geography from the University of Illinois in 1979, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Wyoming in 1984.