Richard Miles, Chairman of the Board
Richard Miles is the co-founder of the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. From 2017-2021 he was a Senior Fellow and a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) inWashington, D.C.
Previously, he served for 20 years as a Foreign Service officer at the U.S. Department of State and as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Army. His diplomatic assignments have included embassies in Argentina, Barbados, Germany, and a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq. From 2007-2008 he directed Mexican and Canadian issues on the National Security Council staff at the White House. Continue Reading…
Cherie Harder, President
Cherie Harder serves as President of the Trinity Forum. Prior to joining the Trinity Forum in 2008, Ms. Harder served in the White House as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Policy and Projects for First Lady Laura Bush.
Earlier in her career she served as Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, advising the Leader on domestic social issues and serving as liaison and outreach director to outside groups. From 2001 to 2005, she was Senior Counselor to the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), where she helped the Chairman design and launch the We the People initiative to enhance the teaching, study, and understanding of American history. Prior to that Ms. Harder was the Policy Director for Senator Sam Brownback and also served as Deputy Policy Director at Empower America. Continue Reading…
Claude Alexander
For over 40 years, Claude Alexander has sought to serve God and the community. Claude Alexander has served as the Senior Pastor of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina for the past 29 years. Under his leadership, The Park Church has grown from one local congregation of 600 members to a global ministry of thousands with three locations and weekly international reach.
Currently, he serves on the boards of Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, BioLogos, Movement.Org, and the International African-American Museum. He provides leadership as chairman of Christianity Today’s Board of Directors, chairman of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Board of Trustees and as Vice Presiding Bishop of the Kingdom Association of Covenant Pastors. Bishop Alexander co-authored Required: God’s Call to Justice, Mercy and Humility to Overcome Racial Division with Dr. Mac Pier, and published two books in 2022, Necessary Christianity: What Jesus Shows We Must Be and Do, and Becoming the Church: God’s People in Purpose and Power. Continue Reading…
Katie Allen
Katie serves as the Executive Director of Project Peace, an organization that promotes human flourishing and volunteer engagement in the East Bay of San Francisco. She has worked in leadership capacities at World Vision, The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and her church, Community Presbyterian Church. Katie is a past board member of the San Ramon Valley Christian Academy, Impact Diablo Valley, and The Trinity Forum Academy. She has also served as an elder at Community Presbyterian Church.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and psychology from Bucknell University where she also played four years of varsity tennis. She also holds a master’s degree in communications from Johns Hopkins University.
She and her husband, Brent, reside in the Bay Area with their two energetic young boys. Katie enjoys running, skiing, reading, attending her children’s numerous sporting events, traveling, and hosting friends and neighbors in her home as much as possible.
Mike Brenan
Mike Brenan is the Regional President for Truist Financial Corporation. He oversees the South Carolina region’s team of experienced financial professionals dedicated to serving the company’s diverse mix of clients, including: business banking; commercial banking; middle market banking; and regional commercial real estate.
With more than 46 years of experience, Mike began his banking career in 1975 as a management trainee. In 1988, he became the President and Chief Executive Officer of Bank One, Portsmouth. In 1994, he became Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of MainStreet Financial Corporation. In 1998 MainStreet was acquired by BB&T Corporation and Mike has been the Regional President in South Carolina since 1999. Mike was named Regional President for the South Carolina Region of the newly formed Truist Financial Corporation in 2019. Continue Reading…
Barbara Bryant
Barbara Bryant is the co-author of The Bryant Family Vineyard Cookbook (Andrews McMeel, 2009) and Almonds: Recipes, History, Culture (Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2014). She has been involved in many philanthropic adventures; she is currently a trustee of The Trinity Forum and serves on the board of Shakespeare Festival St. Louis.
A long-time supporter and Foundation board member of the Bowery Mission in New York City, Barbara donated a portion of the proceeds from The Bryant Family Cookbook to the Mission, and supported inner-city education in St. Louis with proceeds from Almonds: Recipes, History, Culture. Â Continue Reading…
George Clark
Along with his service as a Trustee of the Trinity Forum, George L. Clark, Jr. is co-founder and a partner of Gerygone Capital, a private commercial real estate finance and investment company, and Chairman of Home Interiors, an international direct sales organization.
Prior to co-founding Gerygone Capital, Mr. Clark served as the co-founder and Managing Director of Freestone Partners, a private equity firm focused on investing equity capital in middle market companies, and President of Northstar Partners, Inc., a consulting firm focused on strategically serving investment groups in North America. Continue Reading…
Howard Dahl
Howard Dahl is CEO of Amity Technology, a company that builds sugar beet harvesting equipment and other farm machinery and sells the equipment throughout the world. He comes from a family that developed the Bobcat loader and has been building machinery in North Dakota for 75 years. A large focus of Amity’s business has been the former Soviet Union.
Howard received his B.S. degree in Business Administration from the University of North Dakota, studied philosophy as a graduate student at the University of Florida and completed an M.A. in Philosophy of Religion from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Continue Reading…Â
Catherine Eshelman
Catherine Eshelman holds a B.A. with Distinction in Religious Studies, the University of Virginia, and a J.D., University of Virginia School of Law. She previously practiced environmental regulatory law in the Office of General Counsel at the American Petroleum Institute for five years. She then left to raise three children.
Mrs. Eshelman has also previously served as the President of the Sulgrave Club, a women’s club in Washington, D.C., from 2004 to 2006. She volunteered at D.C. Prep Public Charter School for 10 years and she was the head of the library at the Edgewood Elementary campus for seven years, from 2012 to 2019. She was a trustee of the Jefferson Trust, University of Virginia, from 2007 to 2010, and on the Board of Trustees for Levine Music from 2014 to 2020, and as the Gala Chair for three years. Most recently she has volunteered at All Saints Chevy Chase as the Altar Guild Chair from 2014-2021, and as the co-chair of Kingdom Campaign, which raised over $5M to steady the finances of the parish from 2018 to 2022. She has served as a Vestry Member since 2022. She currently serves as the Secretary and Executive Committee member, and as a member of the search committee for a new Rector, with the search successfully concluded in 2023.
Sam Funk
Sam Funk is a founding member of Sims|Funk, PLC, a boutique law firm in Nashville which represents clients in complex business litigation matters across Tennessee and the United States. Mr. Funk graduated with honors from Wake Forest University and cum laude from the University of Maryland School of Law.  He is regularly recognized by such organizations as Benchmark Litigation, Chambers USA, Woodward/White: The Best Lawyers In America, the Nashville Business Journal Best of Bar, Mid-South Super Lawyers. Continue Reading…
Katherine Haley
Katherine Haley is the founder of Oak Rose Group, LLC, an independent strategy consulting firm focused on human flourishing. Before starting her firm, she served as the vice president of programs and senior director of K-12 programs at The Philanthropy Roundtable from 2016 until 2020 where she helped donors across the country make strategic investments to break down barriers to opportunity and strengthen civil society. Continue Reading…
Nathan Hatch
Dr. Nathan O. Hatch has served as President of Wake Forest University for 16 years and will be retiring this summer. While leading Wake Forest, U.S. News and World Report named Wake Forest 23rd among 281 national universities – the highest ever ranking for the University.
Dr. Hatch is an active leader in American higher education and in local and community affairs. He has served on the board of the American Council on Education and was Chair of the Division I Board of Directors of the NCAA. He is a past chair of the board of directors of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Continue Reading…
Shirley Hoogstra
Shirley Hoogstra serves as president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. She is passionate about Christian higher education and the role it plays in the common good. Shirley joined the Trinity Forum Board of Trustees in 2018.
Having received a bachelor’s in education at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI) and a Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University of Connecticut School of Law, Hoogstra spent more than a decade practicing law as a partner at a firm that specialized in litigation in New Haven, Connecticut. While at this practice, she served on the New Haven County Bar Association, as well as on a number of civic boards and at local schools and churches. She was also a founding board member and officer of the Bridgeport Rescue Mission. Continue Reading…
Roger Laing
For 32 years Roger has provided executive leadership at RLG International, leading the US, European and Canadian Operations. He is now serving as part of the Senior Executive Team.
RLG is a global management consulting firm that specializes in on-site implementation of measurable and sustainable performance improvement projects spanning across multiple and diverse industries such as oil and gas, mining, petrochemical, power generation, forestry, manufacturing, aerospace and defense. Continue Reading…
Paul McNulty
Paul J. McNulty is the President of Grove City College a highly-ranked, national private liberal arts, science and engineering college of 2,500 students located in Western Pennsylvania. He is a 1980 graduate of the College. Prior to returning to his alma mater in 2014, Mr. McNulty spent over thirty years in Washington, D.C., as an attorney in both public service and private practice. In 2005, the United States Senate unanimously confirmed Mr. 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. Continue Reading…Â
Gif Thornton
Gif Thornton is Managing Partner at Adams and Reese LLP, a firm with 300 attorneys and offices across the Southeast from Texas to Washington, D.C. Prior to his current role, he served as legislative counsel to a number of businesses, trade associations, and governmental entities with interests before Tennessee state and local government. He has been named as Best Lawyers “Lawyer of the Year” in Nashville for both Government Relations and Insurance Law.
He is a former member of the Davidson County Election Commission and has served as counsel to a number of statewide Republican campaigns. He was appointed by Governor Bill Lee to chair the Governor’s Council for Judicial Appointments. Previously he was appointed by former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean to the Board of the Metropolitan Development Housing Agency. He is a former Board President to the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee. Gif was the founding Char of the Tennessee Business Leadership Council.
Gif has also served as a member of the Board of Trust of Vanderbilt University, as well as Brentwood Academy. He is an elder at Christ Presbyterian Church and serves on the board of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO.
Gif and his wife Anna have four adult children. Outside of the office, Gif enjoys running and has completed a number of marathons, including those in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.
Prior to law school, Gif worked in the Foreign Service as Special Assistant to the Ambassador at the American Embassy in Paris, France.