Ricardo Herrera
George Washington Leadership Institute & Presidential Library
General Session and Environmental Awards

An award-winning historian, Rick Herrera is the author of Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778, For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775-1861, and of numerous articles and essays. His forthcoming book is the tentatively titled, A Most Uncommon Soldier: The Life, Letters, and Journal of Edward Ashley Bowen Phelps, 1814-1893, an edited collection. A graduate of Marquette University (Ph.D., 1998) and the University of California, Los Angeles (B.A., 1984), Herrera has taught at Mount Union College and Texas Lutheran University. Before becoming a historian, Herrera spent five years in sales and served three years as an armor and cavalry officer in the U.S. Army.

Amy Showalter
The Showalter Group
Joint Government Affairs Meeting and Hill Day Prep + Meet Your Group

What do International Paper, the National Association of REALTORS© and the AMA have in common? They have all turned to Amy Showalter for her expertise and motivation to elevate their government relations influence. Helping government relations professionals improve their advocacy, PAC and influence results is Amy’s passion. Over 85% of her long-term consulting clients have experienced an increase in budget, staff, PAC contributions and senior management recognition after collaborating with Amy.

She has delivered over 300 workshops and keynotes to over 25,000 grassroots advocates, PAC contributors, and PAC boards of directors, government relations staff, and non-profit volunteer leaders about how to maximize their political and civic influence. When she directed the highly acclaimed Nationwide Insurance Civic Action Program (CAP), over 2,000 public affairs professionals across the country ranked Nationwide's program as one of the top two corporate grassroots programs in the country. (Ed Grefe and Martin Linsky, The New Corporate Activism)

She has been cited in over 900 media outlets, including The Hill, Politico, CNN Money.com, Foxnews.com, CNBC.com, and Roll Call. Over 130 of her articles have been published in external media and organizational publications, including over 30 columns published on Forbes.com and Bloomberg Government. She is the author of “The Underdog Edge: How Everyday People Change the Minds of the Powerful . . . and Live to Tell About It.” (Morgan-James) and “The Art and Science of the BFF: 105 Ways to Build Relationships on the Hill, at the State House, and in City Hall”, which has sold over 16,000 copies. Amy also is the Executive Editor of Creating and Managing an Association Government Relations Program, published by the American Society of Association Executives.

Despite not being a registered lobbyist, Amy was named to the National Institute of Lobbying & Ethics “Top Lobbyists” list for her innovations that equip clients to apply scientific influence principles to their advocacy challenges. The Society for Advancement in Consulting awarded her the 2021 Corrie Shanahan Memorial Award for Creativity and Innovation in the consulting profession. Most recently, she and her colleague Dr. Kelton Rhoads won a Campaigns & Elections Reed Award for the “Best Fundraising Innovation” for their Velocity Research Data & Analytics methodology.

She has served as a guest lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ Graduate School of Public Affairs, where her “Underdog Edge” book is on the LBJ’s Graduate School curriculum, as well as George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management, Wright State University, Kent State University, and as a faculty member of the U.S. Chamber's Institute for Organization Management.

Amy has served in several national government relations leadership positions, as past Chairman of ASAE’s Government Relations Section Council, and as a Board Member of the National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics and the Washington Area State Relations Group. For 17 years she produced the annual Innovate to Motivate© conference for experienced political involvement professionals. She also serves as a career coach for members of the Women in Government Relations organization.

Amy has a BA in Political Science from Wright State University and an MSA from Central Michigan University.

She and her husband, Randy Boyer, reside with their dogs Eli and Finn in Cincinnati. Finn is a recently retired Pet Partners® therapy dog. For 12 years, he and Amy regularly visited families at the Cincinnati Ronald McDonald House and children in the “Barks and Books” reading program at the Clermont County Library. She currently is an active volunteer and Board member of Cincinnati Kingdom Inclusion, which conducts enrichment activities for special needs teens and adults.

Nathan Gonzales
CQ Roll Call
General Session Featured Speaker Nathan Gonzales

Nathan Gonzales is Editor & Publisher of Inside Elections, which provides nonpartisan analysis of campaigns for Senate, House, governor, and president. He's also co-host of the Inside Elections Podcast and an Elections Analyst for CQ Roll Call. He tackles elections in a nonpartisan, data-driven, and accessible way and offers audiences some of the most detailed electoral forecasting in the business.

Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Gonzales is full of enthusiasm and thought-provoking insights about politics. His recall of facts and figures is incredible, and he is natural, energetic, and engaging on stage. With a combination of reporting and data, Gonzales breaks down the key races and brings valuable context to complex elections. Drawing from personal candidate interviews and more than 20 years covering campaigns, Gonzales combines entertaining anecdotes with historical trends and current polling data to project which candidates are best-positioned to win and which party is most likely to gain control. Gonzales’ winsome approach to politics is refreshing at a time when the country is divided, and he can reliably navigate audiences with differing partisan views.

On Election Night 2016, Nathan was an on-air analyst for Newshour on PBS after working as an off-air consultant for ABC News on their Election Night Decision Desk for 14 years. Previously, he was an editor, analyst, and writer for The Rothenberg Political Report, and worked for CNN as a political analyst and as an associate producer for Capital Gang.

Gonzales has appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and NBC Nightly News, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, NPR’s All Things Considered, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC, and has been quoted in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. His work has also appeared on FiveThirtyEight, NBCLatino.com, and in Campaigns & Elections magazine.

Gonzales grew up in Oregon, earned his Master of Arts from The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management (Washington, DC) and his bachelor of arts from Vanguard University (Costa Mesa, California). He first came to Washington, D.C. as an intern in the White House Press Office and lives in the city with his wife and four children.