Staff

William J. Felkner brings a combination of skills including political advocacy, policy research and an entrepreneurial spirit to the role of president for the Ocean State Policy Research Institute.

Mr. Felkner began his previous career a few years out of high school as a part time staff at a pet food distributor and retailer in Ohio.  Eighteen years later, he was the owner of a marketing company and a partner in a manufacturing company with a patented product on the shelves of Wal-Mart.

Looking to "make the world a better place," at the age of 35 Felkner entered college and soon received his bachelor’s degree in psychology, Summa Cum Laude, at Rhode Island College.  Following a professor's suggestion, he enrolled in the Master’s of Social Work program where he found a world of political activism that cried for an opposing voice.  This is where the seed of the Ocean State Policy Research Institute was unknowingly planted. 

During year one in the master’s program, Mr. Felkner wrote several editorials and was featured in a number of articles in the Providence Journal, Frontpage Magazine, World Magazine, the Washington Post and numerous online publications documenting his efforts to fight for traditional - classic liberal ideals amidst the political indoctrination present in modern academia. While the goals were the same, to reduce poverty, Felkner had a different view of "social justice" and it wasn't welcome.

One of those fights was for welfare reform. The Poverty Institute, One Rhode Island and its coalition of 160 social service agencies, and a dozen students from RIC wanted more time to provide education and training for welfare recipients so they lobbied the State House in support of Senate Bill 525. Felkner knew the benefits of personal responsibility and lobbied for a "work-first" model and the defeat of S-525. The bill was defeated.

At the end of the first year, Governor Carcieri provided Mr. Felkner with an opportunity to perform his year 2 internship researching a variety of policy issues for the 2005-2006 legislative session at the State House policy office.

Felkner completed his course work in May 2006, but did not receive his degree.  The School of Social Work refused to allow him to complete his Master’s Thesis on the “toxic” subject of welfare reform.  Mr. Felkner refused to acquiesce to these dictatorial demands and has subsequently filed a lawsuit against the college. 

Fortunately, the governor’s office didn’t listen to those professors and Rhode Island has now embraced the reforms championed by Felkner by implementing a “work-first” welfare model.

Upon leaving the college, it was apparent that an opposing voice was needed to balance the progressive views monopolizing Rhode Island.  On July 4, 2007, the Ocean State Policy Research Institute was born from the passion for liberty Felkner exhibited during the time spent forging his advocacy skills. 

Since leaving school in May 2006, Felkner has not only created the Ocean State Policy Research Institute but has also become a board member at Heritage of RI, the president of the Rhode Island Association of Scholars, the chairman of the center-right coalition, a contributing writer to the Manhattan Institute's Minding The Campus website, and a member of the Chariho Regional School District elected as a write-in candidate in December, 2006.

Matthew T. Giardina Jr.
Office Manager

Matthew Giardina, a lifelong resident of Rhode Island, joined the Ocean State Policy Research Institute in late 2008. He earned his BA in Political Science and History and his MA in Political Science from the University of Rhode Island. Before coming to OSPRI Matt was a middle school teacher as well as an Adjunct instructor of American Politics and International Relations at URI. His domestic policy research interests include education and health care reform.

Board of Scholars

David Anderson received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Davis. He has taught high school physics but most of career was spent as a plasma physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. During his years at Livermore he worked on the Magnetic Fusion Energy project, which has been an effort to generate electricity from thermonuclear reactions. He has published over 30 scientific articles on his work. Elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1992, he also served on its governing Council.

Retirement from the energy industry provided a new opportunity to focus on his passions. From 2003 to the present he has developed a new model for educating students in our K-12 school systems utilizing self-paced learning environments that break the mold of age-based learning. Combining this entrepreneurial spirit with his professional experience and history of support for school choice initiatives including campaigns in California during his residency in the late 90’s, made Dr. Anderson a perfect addition to the Ocean State Policy Research Institute Board of Scholars as our Fellow for Education and Energy.

Brian Bishop became a student of environmental policy in the wake of the regulatory reform movement that swept the country during the Reagan era and the changing Congressional landscape of the 1990s.

Beginning as a ‘back to the earth’ experiential environmentalist who ran afoul of the bureaucracies created by his fellows in the youth movement, Mr. Bishop has augmented hands on environmental management with an encyclopedic understanding of law and policy in this arena. His studies serve partly as a self-defense mechanism and partly to further his beliefs that crafting common sense approaches to environmental problems is the only way to insure they will be solved. Most specifically this includes contextualizing risk and weighing the costs and benefits of remediation so as to insure that common sense informs the necessary preliminary inquiry into whether certain environmental indicators actually represent problems in the first place.

Bran has served in numerous formal and informal environmental negotiations as well as analyzing and commenting in the administrative process on rulemaking and implementation pertaining to environmental laws. This included a novel study of ozone trends in Rhode Island: Jumping to Inconclusions pertaining to the implementation of the previous State Implementation Plan for conformance with the Clean Air Act and its 1990 amendments recently updated on its tenth anniversary. He was extensively involved in comments and research surrounding the setting of the ozone and small particulate standards a decade ago and was the co-author of a brief for the U.S. Supreme Court in the resulting.

Edward M. Mazze is Distinguished University Professor of Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island. From 1998-2006, he served as Dean of the College of Business Administration and held the Alfred J. Verrecchia – Hasbro Inc. Leadership Chair in Business. Prior to his appointment at the University of Rhode Island, he served as Dean of The Belk College of Business Administration at The University of North Carolina—Charlotte and Co-Director, The Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise – Charlotte, Dean of the School of Business and Management at Temple University, and Dean of the W. Paul Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University. He received BBA and MBA degrees from City University of New York and his PhD degree in business administration from Pennsylvania State University.

Professor Mazze serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Technitrol, Inc. (NYSE), Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ), The Barrett Growth Fund and the Ocean State Business Development Authority. Dr. Mazze is the former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the William Penn Bank in Philadelphia. Government appointments have included, among others, membership on the Panel of Chapter 7 Trustees of the United States Department of Justice in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, the United States Department of Commerce District Export Council; and Chair of the Tax Competitiveness Committee of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council.

Edward M. Mazze is the author, co-author and/or editor of twelve books in business and over one hundred fifty articles appearing in publications such as Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Finance, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Economics and Business, American Business Law Journal, Journal of Retailing, The Journal of Consumer Affairs, and Long Range Planning Journal.

Sean was previously vice president for external affairs at The Heartland Institute, a free market think tank in Chicago. His primary responsibility for Heartland was fundraising. At Heartland, Sean also spent time researching, writing, and speaking on public policy issues - specifically health care reform. He wrote Congressional testimony and numerous articles and op-eds. He also authored two research papers for the Texas Public Policy Foundation and briefed public officials and trade groups on policy issues. Prior to joining Heartland, Sean worked on political campaigns in Iowa. He managed a successful congressional campaign and served as finance director for a U.S. Senate race. Sean received an economics degree from Drake University and is currently the president of the Center for Competitive Politics.