Michael L. Barton, Ph.D.

Michael L. Barton, Ph.D., “was born and raised in Portland back when transit was private and you could pick your own garbage company.”

In the City of Roses, he met and married his wife Mary Ann and in 1999 they had an instant family with the birth of their triplets. Dr. Barton was able to leave his position as a computational scientist at Intel and spend his time chasing his children and working for Cascade. His interests include, but are not limited to, free market approaches to transportation and land use, the effect of government interference in the arts and the importance of the separation of state and education.

A Cascade research associate since 2002, Dr. Barton has co-authored The Mythical World of Transit-Oriented Development: Light Rail and the Orenco Neighborhood, Hillsboro, Oregon with Cascade environmental policy director John A. Charles, Jr. He continues to write for Cascade and is presently working on a policy paper on the arts and a report on another Portland-area Transit-Oriented Development.

Dr. Barton earned his Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his Master of Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic and his doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

William B. Conerly, Ph.D.

William B. Conerly, Ph.D., is chairman of the board of Cascade Policy Institute. He is also a member of Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski’s Council of Economic Advisors, and he served in that capacity under Governors Neil Goldschmidt, Barbara Roberts and John Kitzhaber. Conerly is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Currently the principal of Conerly Consulting, William served as senior vice president at First Interstate Bank.

Conerly is one of the best-known economic consultants in the Pacific Northwest. For over 20 years, he has helped business managers make better decisions through a better understanding of the economy.

William B. Conerly holds a Ph.D. in economics from Duke University. He is co-author of Thinking Economics, a high school textbook. Regularly interviewed by the media, he has been quoted in numerous publications, including Fortune Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, as well as interviewed on The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour.

Lawrence “Larry” W. Dennis, Sr.

Lawrence “Larry” W. Dennis, Sr., is the founder and president of Turbo Leadership Systems. Dennis has been a consultant and trainer since 1962. He joined the Cascade board in January, 2003.

Lawrence W. Dennis, Sr., has consulted for business executives and personally trained sales and customer service representatives and entrepreneurs coast to coast and in South Africa, Italy, the West Indies, Canada and Great Britain. He is the author of six business books on topics that include leadership, customer service and time management. Dennis is also a weekly columnist for the Portland Daily Journal of Commerce.

Dennis currently serves on his church board. He formerly served on the Business Advisory Council at Warner Pacific College, the Board of Trustees at John Wesley College and the Education Committee of the Portland Chamber of Commerce.

Gilion Dumas

Gilion C. Dumas is a partner at the law firm of O’Donnell Clark & Crew, LLP.  She has substantial experience in commercial, real estate and tort litigation. Since 1992, her practice has included complex business disputes, real estate, employment, and professional liability matters.  More recently, she has represented victims of childhood sexual abuse in lawsuits against perpetrators and institutions that fostered the abuse.

Gilion is the newest Cascade Board member, joining the Board in January 2011.

She is an active member of the state and federal bars in Oregon, Washington, California, and Idaho. She is a former Chair of the Oregon State Bar’s Business Litigation Section and a former President of the Oregon Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

Gilion is an avid bibliophile and the author of a popular book blog, Rose City Reader (www.RoseCityReader.com).

Jon Egge

Jon Egge manages a second generation Oregon business. He has held numerous leadership positions representing small business and currently serves on the Oregon Leadership Advisory Council of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Jon has been extensively involved at the public policy level with employment law, workers compensation reform, and welfare reform.

Egge is a lifelong Oregonian and a supporter of Cascade Policy Institute from its inception. He believes that small business is well served by Cascade’s work.

David W. Gore

David Gore is a co-founder of Cascade Policy Institute. He is also founder of Ashbrook Independent School in Corvallis and serves as chairman of its board as well as Director of Outreach Programs. He served for many years on the board of the Space Studies Institute in Princeton, and is currently a director of W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc.

Much of Gore’s career has involved research and development, and he has been granted five patents for his work in desalination and rapid prototyping. He also taught science and mathematics in the Peace Corps in Malaysia and has a degree in linguistics.

Gore’s activism in seeking free-market solutions to societal problems began when he joined Steve Buckstein in the early 1990s to promote a school choice initiative in Oregon. This collaboration led to the founding of Cascade Policy Institute.

William Udy

William Udy has served as a board member and finance director of Cascade Policy Institute since it was founded in 1991. He is a senior financial analyst at NW Natural, where he has served for most of his career.

Udy is a long-time activist in the individual liberty, property rights and limited government community. Prior to Cascade’s founding, he served as treasurer of the 1990 general election campaign for a citizens’ initiative that would have provided educational tax credits for all K-12 students in Oregon.

A resident of Tigard, Oregon, Udy enjoys traveling, hiking, biking and playing the piano.