Paul Gessing became the first full-time President of the Rio Grande Foundation in March of 2006. Since joining the Foundation, Gessing has been a prominent voice for limited government and individual liberties in policy areas including: taxes, health care, education, and transportation.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Gessing headed up the lobbying efforts of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) a respected taxpayer-advocacy organization in Washington, DC.

Paul graduated from Bowling Green State University in Ohio with a degree in Political Science in 1997 and he received his Masters in Business Administration from the University of Maryland in 2005. Paul is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, but he has several family members in New Mexico and has spent a great deal of time in the state over the years.

Paul and his wife Krista were married in October 2007 in Algodones, NM. In his spare time, Paul enjoys playing basketball, golf, playing with the family dogs, and traveling.

Kenneth M. Brown is an economist with more than 35 years experience in government and academia and as a consultant. His areas of expertise include public policy, the economics of research, statistics, and program evaluation.

With the federal government, Dr. Brown was a charter member of the Senior Executive Service. With the National Science Foundation, he directed a staff of economists and statisticians that produced the nation’s key data on the scientific enterprise. He served as National Intelligence Officer for economics at CIA. During the Reagan administration, he was Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Commerce Department and Assistant Director of the Republican staff of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee.

Dr. Brown holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in economics from The Johns Hopkins University. He has served on the faculties of Notre Dame and Ohio State University. He was visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he published a book on federal funding of science and various articles on public policy.

Harold C. “Harry” Messenheimer, Ph.D.: Dr. Messenheimer received his M.A. from Virginia Tech in 1980 and his Ph.D. from George Mason University in 1989. He is a research associate at the Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University. He has taught at the University of Richmond and George Mason University, specializing in microeconomics, macroeconomics, econometrics, the economics of taxes and production of public policy. From 1991 through 1993 he served as economic advisor to Commissioner William P. Albrecht (acting Chairman) at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Dr. Messenheimer has written on applications of economics to collective decisions.

Micha Gisser was born in Israel where he received a B.Sc. degree from the School of Law and Economics in Tel Aviv in 1958. He received an MA and a Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago, in 1962. During most of his academic career, from 1967 to 2001, he served as a professor of economics at UNM. He published many articles in academic journals such as Econometrica, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, American Journal of Agricultural Economics and Economic Inquiry. Most of his research focused on the fields of agricultural economics, water rights and industrial organization. He occasionally published articles in the Albuquerque Journal defending private water rights in New Mexico, and advocating electric-power deregulation.

Justin gained an appreciation for limited government through a childhood largely spent in Pierre, South Dakota. Returning to his native New Mexico for college, he received a B.A. with honors in biology from the University of New Mexico, where he also studied computer science, anthropology, and music composition extensively. After working for several years developing GIS applications for conservation biology, he returned to UNM for graduate study, where he has recently completed the first year of the Ph.D. program in economics.

Paige McKenzie is the Rio Grande Foundation's Project Manager for New Mexico Votes (www.newmexicovotes.org), a new Web site dedicated to furthering transparency of government at all levels in New Mexico.

Paige has eight years of experience working in state government and other areas related to government policy. At the state legislature she has analyzed hundreds of bills dealing with the state budget, voting and elections, consumer and public affairs, and served as press secretary.

A published writer, Paige has written and edited for various local and national magazines and other organizations including book jackets for Thomas Nelson Publishers, the New Mexico Business Journal, Albuquerque The Magazine, Business Nashville magazine, Nashville Life magazine, American Cowboy and NewsMax, where she served on the company's editorial board. She has interviewed David Horowitz, John Fund, Michael Deaver, Mary Matalin, John Bryant, and various other authors, congressmen, senators and celebrities.

Paige has served as communications director both for campaigns and private companies, as well as Executive Director of the Bernalillo County Republican Party.

Her experience also includes television reporting and production, public relations and various other consulting roles, and public speaking within New Mexico and at national conferences in Washington, D.C.

Paige has a bachelor's degree in communications from David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, with a minor in business and the French language.