Meet the 2019 Buckley Award Winners

The winners are in!

Over 50 outstanding liberty-minded leaders were nominated for this year’s Buckley Awards, and AF is excited to introduce our five winners.

These young leaders have made it a mission in their lives to promote freedom and individual liberty in our society, and their work is inspirational.

As the namesake of the awards, William F. Buckley, Jr. said, “The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.” And these winners are certainly that.

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Celebrate with this year’s winners at the Annual Gala and Buckley Awards on Thursday, May 23, at 7:00 pm at Nationals Park in Washington, DC. Purchase your tickets here.

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Through their work–advancing the ideas of a free society in creative and innovative ways, leading a significant grassroots initiative to protect individual liberty, and impacting news coverage of a high profile issue–the efforts of this year’s winners to promote freedom and limited government better the lives and happiness of all Americans.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Buckley Awards, and we are excited to honor this year’s winners at the 2019 Annual Gala.

Meet our 2019 Buckley Award winners, and learn even more about each of them in their Q&A’s linked below!

The 2019 Buckley Award winners:

Austin Berg, for his contribution to the advancement of liberty in one of the country’s most governmentally-restrictive states, Illinois, by using creative and personal storytelling. Through his “solutions journalism” initiative at the Illinois Policy Institute, he shares stories of Illinoisans suffering under poor public policy choices and successfully connects free-market solutions to those problems.

 

 

Political and economic freedoms are the essential ingredients for human flourishing.

 

Austin is the director of content strategy for the Illinois Policy Institute. He works to tell the stories of Illinoisans who are affected by public policy through writing, photography, and video.

He and his work have been featured in The Economist, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, ABC 7 Chicago, and WTTW. He is the winner of two Peter Lisagor Awards from the Chicago Headline Club for his photojournalism work.

Austin is the co-author of “The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities,” published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press. He is also the writer of the 2016 documentary film, “Madigan: Power. Privilege. Politics.”

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Brooke Fallon, for her impact in the effort to reduce burdensome occupational licensing requirements and improve the livelihoods of Americans across the country. Through her work at the Institute for Justice, she has taught activists, entrepreneurs, and property owners how to make their voices heard against the threat of government overreach.

 

 

There is nothing more American than using the freedoms you have to fight for the freedoms that you, or those that you care about, lack.

Brooke is the assistant director of activism at the Institute for Justice (IJ). Brooke teaches activists across the country how to fight for their rights to own property and earn an honest living. Through organizing, trainings, coalition building, and public outreach, Brooke helps entrepreneurs and property owners stand up and make their voices heard against the threat of government abuses of power.

Before joining IJ’s activism team Brooke worked in IJ’s Clinic on Entrepreneurship where she focused on knocking down barriers for low-income entrepreneurs in Chicago.

Brooke received her bachelor’s in international studies from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the Institute for Justice, Brooke worked at several nonprofits in the Chicago area, including the Center for What Works, the University of Chicago Community Service Center, and Heartland Alliance.

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Richard Lorenc, for his impact on the education of the next generation of free-market leaders through his work at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). Under Richard’s direction, FEE’s Youth Education & Audience Research (“YEAR”) project is working to develop and promote new content and distribution techniques for free-market ideas.

 

 

Politically, advancing personal liberty not only works to foster human prosperity, but it’s the most ethically correct.

Richard is the executive vice president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). In this capacity, Lorenc supports FEE’s business unit leaders, supervises program measurement, directs artwork and corporate communications, and participates in fundraising and strategic planning. Richard also serves as managing director of FEE’s Youth Education & Audience Research (“YEAR”) project.

He is involved in a variety of civic, educational, and professional development organizations. He serves on the board of directors of the Coalition to Reduce Spending, Inc. and is the chairman of the board of directors for America’s Future Foundation. A dual American-Polish citizen, Richard serves on the advisory board of the Freedom and Entrepreneurship Foundation (Fundacja Wolności i Przedsiębiorczości). He is graduate of both the Charles Koch Institute’s Liberty@Work program and the Atlas Network’s Leadership Academy, including the Think Tank MBA. His background includes service at the Illinois Policy Institute, America’s Future, and Truth in Accounting.

Richard has traveled to over 30 countries and is widely published on topics ranging from constitutional government to LGBT rights and design. He is a graduate of Emory University and lives in beautiful Lake Claire, Atlanta, with his husband, Colin Caldarera.

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Aaron Rice, for his impact on the debate over administrative forfeiture in the state of Mississippi. Through numerous op-eds and media interviews, Aaron’s work at the Mississippi Justice Institute has directly influenced public conversations on this issue of personal liberty, and, ultimately, successfully swayed lawmakers and public policy in Mississippi.

 

 

Our liberty allows us to be our true selves and to shape our own destinies. It is our greatest treasure as Americans.

Aaron serves as the director of the Mississippi Justice Institute at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Aaron felt called to serve his country. He joined the Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines; the battalion would go on to suffer the highest number of casualties of any in the Iraq war. Aaron received the Purple Heart for sustaining combat injuries that resulted in the loss of his left leg below the knee.

Upon returning home, Aaron earned a degree in political science from Mississippi State University and was awarded the national Truman Scholarship to pursue his graduate studies. He earned his law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law, where he developed an interest in constitutional law.

Prior to joining the Mississippi Justice Institute, Aaron built his career as a litigation attorney at a nationally recognized law firm in Mississippi. Aaron is a fellow of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) National Trial College at Harvard Law School, and a graduate of the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) Trial Academy at Stanford Law School.

Aaron is a Deacon at Madison Heights Church, PCA. He and his wife, Kelly, live in Madison, MS, with their four children, Clark, Griffin, Ramsey, and Miles.

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Matt Warner, for his impact in the understanding of free-market ideas internationally. Through his work at the Atlas Network, he created the “Doing Development Differently” initiative, which reexamines foreign aid and the developing world, as well as expanded the impact of their training programs, strengthening the worldwide freedom movement.

 

 

There’s something troubling to me when someone thinks they know best how others should live their lives.

Matt is president and senior fellow of Atlas Network. Under the direction of the CEO, he is responsible for strategy, programming, and personnel management. Matt also leads the development of a research agenda to further demonstrate the invaluable role of think tanks in achieving freedom around the world. Matt writes, speaks, and consults internationally on the topics of economics, institution building, nonprofit management, measurement, and impact philanthropy. Matt coined the term “the outsider’s dilemma” to describe the challenge of helping low-income countries develop without inadvertently and perversely getting in the way of their most viable paths to prosperity. His work has appeared in Cato Journal, Forbes, Harvard’s Education Next, Real Clear Markets, Foundation for Economic Education, EconTalk, and Washington Times, among others.

Prior to joining Atlas Network in 2010, Matt served in various policy leadership positions at nonprofit think tanks with a focus on energy, education, and property rights. Matt has a master’s degree in economics from George Mason University and is certified by Georgetown University in organizational development consulting.

Matt and his wife Chrissy, an attorney, live in Vienna, Virginia with their four children.

 

Join us in celebrating the inspiring achievements of this year’s winners at the 2019 Annual Gala and Buckley Awards on Thursday, May 23, at 7:00 pm at Nationals Park! Get your tickets here.