William C. Eacho, co-Founder and ceo

William C. Eacho is a successful businessman who served as United States Ambassador to Austria from 2009 to 2013. He was a Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University from 2015-2020. He serves on the board of directors of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the American-Austrian Foundation. He spent much of his business career in the foodservice distribution business as Chairman & CEO of Atlantic Food Services, and later as EVP of Alliant Foodservice, Inc., at that point a $6 billion national distributor. He served as founding Chairman of UniPro, the industry’s leading procurement and marketing cooperative with combined member sales of $20 billion. Ambassador Eacho was later CEO of Carlton Capital Group, LLC, a private investment company focused on investment in real estate, and private equity. Mr. Eacho graduated from Duke University with a major in law and economics and graduated with Distinction from Harvard Business School. 

Walter C. Minnick, co-Founder

Walter C. Minnick is the Co-Founder and Partner, The Majority Group, a Washington, DC government relations firm. He was previously a Congressman from Idaho. Prior to serving in Congress, he was Co-Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO of SummerWinds Garden Centers, Inc., the 14th largest independent garden center company in the United States. He previously was President and Chief Executive Officer of Trus Joist Corporation, now a $3 billion division of the Weyerheauser Co. and formerly a Fortune 1000 public corporation. He was a Co-Founder, Director and Member of the Idaho Business Council, a group of 50 CEOs or heads of Idaho business units of significant Idaho corporations, and a past member of the American Business Conference (CEO’s of 100 high-growth, American corporations). In 1991 was selected as Idaho’s Businessman of the Year. Prior to his career in business he served 3 ½ years as a Staff Assistant to the President and as a Deputy Assistant Director in the Office of Management and Budget under President Nixon, tasked with starting the federal government’s global anti-drug program. He was previously a 1st Lieutenant in the US Army stationed in the Pentagon working as the economist on Department of Defense’s Vietnamization Task Force. Prior to his military service, he was an associate with Davies, Biggs, Stoel, Rives and Boley, Portland, OR, then the largest law firm in the Pacific Northwest. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with Honors in Economics from Whitman College and with High Distinction from Harvard Business School and Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School.

Ben Beach, Senior Writer

Ben Beach is a writer and editor who has worked for Time Magazine, USA Today, a Michigan congressman, The Wilderness Society, the Alliance to Save Energy, and, most recently, the State Department. His responsibilities have included media outreach and serving as editor-in-chief of magazines, newsletters, and annual reports. His work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, The Washington Post, The New Republic, STATE Magazine, and elsewhere. 

Beach has edited reports by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others.

Mary Hanley, Communications Advisor

Mary Hanley is a seasoned communications professional with extensive experience in the public, non-profit and private sectors. She has managed a wide variety of strategic media campaigns supporting public policy, grassroots education and mobilization, coalition and image-building and crisis management programs.

Hanley was director of communications for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and for the Secretary of Commerce. She served on the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative’s Climate and Energy Facilitation Team. She was COO for a technology business consulting firm; vice president for communications at The Wilderness Society, communications director for U.S. Senator Kay Hagan, (N.C), and executive vice president of the National Association for Biomedical Research. Hanley also worked as a public affairs officer in the U.S. Secretary of State’s office and as director of special events for the City of Philadelphia. She received her B.A. in International Relations at George Washington University and attended graduate school at the Europa Institute in the Netherlands.