Frank J. Gaffney
Frank Gaffney is the President of the Institute for the American Future, a new not-for-profit organization dedicated to assuring the security and well-being of our constitutional Republic and her people now and in the future. The Institute seeks to accomplish that mission by: providing early warning about emerging threats; identifying effective ways of countering them; and working in partnership with other, like-minded patriots to maximize the impact of those efforts.
In addition, Mr. Gaffney is the host of “Securing America,” a daily program on the Real America’s Voice network and podcast; the driving force behind SecuringAmerica.Substack.com; the Vice Chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC); the co-founder of the Sovereignty Coalition (SovCo); and the author of a weekdaily audio and video commentary, the “Secure Freedom Minute.”
In 1987, Frank Gaffney was tapped by President Ronald Reagan at the age of 34 to become the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy after his four years as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. He went on to found and lead for thirty-four years the Center for Security Policy to champion the practice of what the Gipper called “peace through strength” through a high-impact/low overhead model Mr. Gaffney dubbed “the Special Forces in the War of Ideas.”
Following his years of public service, Mr. Gaffney has used every available vehicle and platform to enhance the national security of the United States. These have included: earned media; his own TV/podcast program; over two dozen books he published through the Center for Security Policy Press and the most recent one he authored: The Indictment: Prosecuting the Chinese Communist Party and Friends for Crimes Against America, China and the World; myriad coalitions; and Twitter/X (including numerous X Spaces), Substack and other social media platforms.
Rod D. Martin
Rod D. Martin is founder and CEO of Martin Capital, is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and futurist from Destin, Florida. Fox Business calls him a “tech guru,” the Guardian describes him as a “philosopher-capitalist,” BlazeTV deems him “one of America’s leading public intellectuals”, while Gawker once described him as “another of [PayPal founder] Peter Thiel’s brilliant nonconformists.”
An investor, director or officer in numerous ventures, focusing in the Internet, biotech, aerospace and energy sectors, Mr. Martin is especially noted for his role as a member of the pre-IPO startup team at Silicon Valley legend PayPal — the “PayPal Mafia” — where he served as a senior advisor to founder and CEO Peter Thiel. Launched during the worst of the dot-com bust by a team whose average age was just 23, PayPal amassed more than 25 million customers in just over two years, drove giant competitors such as Western Union, AOL and Citibank out of its market, and conducted the first successful post-bust tech IPO.
Mr. Martin helped lead the takeover and turnaround of Galectin Therapeutics (NASDAQ:GALT), where in addition to serving as managing member of the company’s largest institutional shareholder he has also served in a variety of capacities including Lead Director and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. GALT’s lead candidate drug, which has successfully reversed liver fibrosis and cirrhosis, is now in its Phase III human clinical trial and has received Fast Track designation from the FDA.
Mr. Martin is also Founder and CEO of Martin Capital, and a Founder of 10X Capital Management, Navigo, Alpha2 Pharmaceuticals, Martin Imaging, and Agincourt Ventures, among other endeavors.
Mr. Martin previously served as Policy Director to Governor Mike Huckabee and as an aide to senior Congressional leader John Paul Hammerschmidt. He is a member of the Board of Governors and Gold Circle of the Council for National Policy, the Committee on the Present Danger, and the Board of Advisors of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, is a three-time past President and later National Advisory Board Chairman of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), and serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Security Policy, America’s foremost conservative national security think tank.
Mr. Martin has also addressed audiences on four continents, has written extensively for publications such as Forbes, Human Events, Inc., Fortune and FoxNews.com, and has served as a member of Stratfor‘s Board of Contributors.
In 2014 Mr. Martin was named Distinguished Visiting Professor of History, Government and Entrepreneurship at Hannibal-LaGrange University, a highly ranked private liberal arts college. He was a Sturgis Fellow at the University of Arkansas, studied political and economic thought at Cambridge University in Great Britain, and is an award-winning civil rights scholar. He was elected student body president at Baylor Law School, where he was also named Outstanding Oral Advocate. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution (General Joseph Martin Chapter, named for his fifth great grandfather), is deeply involved in charitable work aimed at alleviating global poverty, and has raised significant sums for scholarships for disadvantaged children.
Mr. Martin serves on the boards of several charitable and educational institutions, including The Martin Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Biotechnology, the Board of Advisors of the Liberty University School of Business, and the Board of Trustees of Truett-McConnell University, and previously the Board of Governors at Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY). He is a co-founder of the Conservative Baptist Network, two-term member of the executive committee of the Florida Baptist Convention State Board of Missions, and a former officer of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination.
Dede Laugesen
In December 2024, Dede Laugesen joined Frank J. Gaffney at the Institute for the American Future as the Chief of Staff and continues her duties in the below-mentioned positions.
Save the Persecuted Christians (STPC) Executive Director and Founding Member, Dede Laugesen, endeavors to raise awareness about the plight of at least 365 million Christians facing brutal and extreme violence and injustice in countries around the world and seeks to hold the perpetrators accountable for their crimes against humanity. The organization — an informal, national coalition of multifaith NGOs and community leaders — began in Feb. 2018 and re-organized as a formal non-profit charitable entity in December 2018.
Laugesen also serves as the Executive Secretary for the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) from May 2019 to present. The mission of the Committee is to help defend America through public education and advocacy against the full array of conventional and non-conventional dangers posed by the People’s Republic of China.
Laugesen is co-author with Gaffney of the book “The Indictment: Prosecuting the Chinese Communist Party & Friends for Crimes against America, China, and the World,” which was released at number one in U.S. national security and SE Asia politics on May 9, 2023. The book focuses on the CCP’s decades-long self-described “Unrestricted Warfare” against America and the free world.
Formerly, Laugesen was a Colorado Coalitions Director for the 2016 Donald J. Trump for President campaign and has experience managing issues and candidate campaigns and/or serving as communications director.