OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Michael Ortner is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI). He co-founded Capterra in 1999, a technology and online media company recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. He was CEO until he sold the company to Gartner in 2015. Mr. Ortner is a graduate of Georgetown University.

Mary Rice Hasson is Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of RFI. She is the Kate O’Beirne Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where she also directs the Catholic Women’s Forum, a network of Catholic professional women and scholars seeking to amplify the voice of women in support of Catholic teachings. An attorney and an expert on culture, faith, religious liberty, and gender ideology, Mrs. Hasson speaks at national conferences, diocesan events, and universities across the country. For the past three years, Mrs. Hasson has been a keynote speaker for the Holy See at the United Nations during the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

Douglas Bech is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Raintree Resorts International, a company that owns and operates vacation ownership resorts throughout North America. Mr. Bech practiced securities and corporate finance law from 1970 until 1997. He received his B.A. from Baylor University and a J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Thomas Farr is the founding Director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown’s Berkley Center. In 1999, he became the first Director of the State Department’s Office for International Religious Freedom. Farr holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina.

Scott Hamberger is President and CEO, as well as co-founder, of Integrus Holdings, Inc. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Marymount University, as well as, the Board of Directors of both the Bank of Clarke County and Inova Loudoun Hospital. Hamberger holds a B.A. from Georgetown University.

Patrick Kearns is the Senior Vice President of Morgan Stanley. Mr. Kearns is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

Governor Frank Keating served as President and CEO of the American Bankers Association until December 2015. From 1995 to 2003 he served as the twenty-fifth governor of Oklahoma. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University and a law degree from the University of Oklahoma.

Anthony Lauinger is the Vice President of National Right to Life, a position he has held for 19 years. He is president of Oklahomans for Life and was a three-time delegate to the Republican National Convention. Mr. Lauinger is a graduate of Georgetown University.

Hannah Smith is Associate Director of the International Center for Law & Religion Studies at BYU Law School. She clerked for two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito, Jr. She served as senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty for a decade until 2017. Her work contributed to multiple religious liberty victories at the Supreme Court, including the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC and Zubik v. Burwell (the "Little Sisters of the Poor" case). Ms. Smith is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and Brigham Young University Law School, Order of the Coif.

Sealy Yates is senior partner at Yates & Yates, LLP, a law firm based in Orange County, California that represents some of the most well-known Christian authors in the United States. He has served on the boards of directors for a wide range of leading ministry organizations serving around the world, including Open Doors International, Insight for Living, Turning Point Ministries, and Wild at Heart Ministries among others. He has also served on the Pepperdine School of Law Board of Visitors.

Mark Winter was the founding chairman of the Board of Directors of RFI (2017-2020) and is now board member emeritus. A member of the 1966 graduating class of Georgetown, Winter was the Executive Vice President of Public Policy for the Washington, D.C. office of Stewart Title, one of the world’s largest real estate title companies. He was responsible for the development and coordination of both commercial and residential real estate business and for the procurement of international land titling projects funded by independent federal agencies. Winter represented Stewart before Congress, various regulatory agencies, and government-sponsored entities. Prior to joining Stewart, Winter was a special assistant to the U.S. ambassador to Jamaica and a member of the professional staff of U.S. Representatives Bill Bray (R-Ind.) and Frances Bolton (R-Ohio). In 2010, Winter was elected president of the 6,000 member American Land Title Association.