OKLAHOMA CITY (April 9, 2012) – Attorney Matt Mayer, a former think-tank president and senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has been appointed a Research Fellow at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA), Oklahoma’s leading free-market think tank.
Mayer also serves as a Visiting Fellow with The Heritage Foundation, America’s top think tank, where he writes and speaks on national security and federalism issues. He heads the Homeland Security and the States and Federalism projects for Heritage. Mayer’s book, Homeland Security and Federalism: Protecting America from Outside the Beltway (with a foreword by the Honorable Edwin Meese III), argued for reversing the federalization of homeland security by returning power to states and localities.
Formerly, Mayer served as the President of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Ohio’s top free-market think tank. Under Mayer’s leadership, the Buckeye Institute went from a nearly bankrupt and irrelevant entity to a debt-free and influential trendsetter. Mayer also launched an innovative, best-in-class website attracting more than 6 million data searches and released several game-changing reports on how best to fix Ohio, including reports on reducing Ohio’s costly governments, reforming criminal justice and Medicaid programs, transforming government pensions for today’s economy, and reinvigorating Ohio’s systemically weak private sector.
“Matt is a top-flight researcher and analyst, whom I've known and respected for years, and we could not be more thrilled to be adding him to our team,” said OCPA president Michael Carnuccio. “From the historian Rufus Fears to the law professor Andrew Spiropoulos and on down the list, OCPA’s research fellows are second to none. Matt’s addition to the team makes our organization even stronger.”
Before joining the Buckeye Institute, Mayer served as a highly rated Adjunct Professor at The Ohio State University, where he taught a course comparing responses within the transatlantic alliance to terrorist threats. Mayer was a senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under the leadership of Secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, where he provided DHS leaders with policy and operational advice as the Counselor to the Deputy Secretary and where he headed the $3.5 billion terrorism preparedness office charged with developing initiatives to transform America to meet the demands of a post-9/11 environment.
Mayer came to DHS from Colorado where he served Governor Bill Owens as the Deputy Director for the Department of Regulatory Agencies. Mayer co-developed Colorado’s Regulatory Notice system that utilizes electronic mail to notify stakeholders of all proposed regulations before those regulations become final. The Regulatory Notice system earned the Denver Business Journal’s 2003 “Innovative Product/Service Award” for making government more transparent and accountable. Prior to joining Governor Owens’ team, Mayer served as a deputy in Colorado Senator Wayne Allard’s reelection effort in 2002, and ran a widely hailed congressional campaign for a first-time candidate. As a result of his campaign work, the Colorado Statesman selected Mayer for its 2002 “Rising Star Award.”
Mayer was a 2007 Lincoln Fellow with The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy and a 2006 American Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 1997, Mayer was the recipient of the ABA-BNA Excellence in Labor & Employment Law Award, and recognized as a Public Service Fellow. He has written articles for law reviews, public policy journals, newspapers, and Townhall.com; given testimony to the U.S. Congress, the Texas House and Senate, and the Ohio House and Senate; and appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, ONN, and other major media outlets.
Mayer graduated cum laude from the University of Dayton, with a double major in Philosophy and Psychology, and received his law degree from The Ohio State University College of Law, where he was the editor-in-chief of the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution.
OCPA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank which formulates public policy research and analysis consistent with the principles of free enterprise, limited government, and individual initiative.
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