Steamboat Institute (SI)

The Steamboat Institute is a partner organization of the State Policy Network, a coalition of free-market state-level policy organizations. ³ While SI describes itself non-partisan, members of its staff and board have affiliations with right-of-center organizations. ⁴

Activities

The Steamboat Institute advocates for free markets, individual liberty, limited government, strong national defense, and limited taxes. ¹

The Steamboat Institute supports school choice. SI asserts that because school choice would allow families and students more educational options, it would grant them freedom to choose among curriculums, instead of having it dictated by school districts or legislation. SI further claims that school choice encourages a free market, which could prevent government interventions like curriculum restrictions from constraining free speech. ⁵

The Steamboat Institute argued that COVID-19 stimulus checks did not actually help with economic recovery. SI claimed that the way stimulus money was used by Americans indicates that they are both fearful of the future economy and of potential social unrest, and points to high rates of savings and billions of stimulus dollars spent on firearms and ammunition. The Steamboat Institute argues the claim of Austrian-school economists, who argued that stimulus programs destroy wealth, and argued for cutting government spending and regulations to let the free market recover. SI claimed that the U.S. government is unlikely to do either of these, harming economic recovery. ⁶

In 2018, the Steamboat Institute launched the Campus Liberty Tour (CLT) program to encourage critical thinking skills through debates and dialogues at college campuses. SI claims its CLT program helps combat supposed attacks on free speech and open discourse happening on college campuses. ⁷ As of 2021, the CLT advisory board included Hadley Heath Manning, policy director at the Independent Women’s Forum; Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill, director of the Campus Free Expression Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center; and Ilya Shapiro, then-director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. ⁸

The Steamboat Institute hosts an annual Freedom Conference and Festival. Speakers scheduled to appear at the 2021 Conference included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D), and Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who advised the first Trump administration on COVID-19. ⁹

Funding

The Steamboat Institute is funded by donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations. The Steamboat Institute lists its donors in its annual reports and tax filings confirm donations from the Community First Foundation ($38,669 in 2018), ¹⁰ the Anschutz Foundation ($35,000 in 2017), ¹¹ and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation ($25,000 in 2018). ¹²

People

Jennifer Schubert-Akin is the CEO, co-founder, and chair of the Steamboat Institute. Schubert-Akin is a graduate of the Leadership Program of the Rockies, where she formerly served on the advisory board, and sat on the advisory board of the Docs4PatientCare Foundation. ¹³

Board of Directors

Rick Akin, Jennifer Schubert-Akin’s husband, is a co-founder and the vice chair of the Steamboat Institute. Ekin is a graduate of the Leadership Program of the Rockies. ¹⁴

Roger Dorf formerly chaired of the U.S. Section of the Brazil/U.S. Business Council, sat on the board of the National Chamber Foundation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and was president of the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley. ¹⁵

Bill Friesell is the former CEO and chair of Diners Club International and the former director and treasurer of the Indian River Tea Party. ¹⁶

Charles McNeil formerly served on the National Coal Council and as a director of the National Coal Association. McNeil is a member of the American Coal Council, the American Energy Society, and the Western Energy Alliance, and serves on the board of the Common Sense Institute. ¹⁷

Aurelia Skipwith Giacometto formerly served as the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and as a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior. Skipwith formerly held a position in regulatory affairs at Monsanto. ¹⁸

Matthew Spalding formerly worked as vice president of American Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Spalding was a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. ⁴

Bridgett Wagner is the executive director of the Edwin J. Feulner Institute at the Heritage Foundation. Wagner sits on the boards of the State Policy Network and the Foundation for Government Accountability, and on the advisory board of the Docs4PatientCare Foundation. ¹⁹

Cheri Carsten is an emeritus member of the board and serves on the advisory council of the Leadership Program of the Rockies. ²⁰

Gary Hofmeister is an emeritus member of the board and was a Republican nominee for U.S. Congress in 1998. ²¹

National Advisory Board

Steve Hofman is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor, a former guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, and a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations. ²²

The late Bill Thomson formerly worked as president of the Wyoming Taxpayers Association and on the litigation board of Mountain States Legal Foundation. ²³

Michael Williams is the facilitator of the “Defenders of Capitalism” program at the Leadership Program of the Rockies. ²⁴