July 9-24, 2008
Bozeman, MT

Terry Anderson is the executive director of PERC the Property and Environment Research Center, a non-profit institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through markets; senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; and professor emeritus at Montana State University. His work helped launch the idea of free market environmentalism with the publication of his book by that title, coauthored with Donald Leal. Anderson is the author or editor of 30 books. These include Enviro-Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 1997), also coauthored with Leal, Property Rights: Cooperation, Conflict, and Law, coedited with Fred S. McChesney (Princeton University Press 2003), and The Not So Wild, Wild West, coauthored with P. J. Hill (Stanford University Press 2004). He has published widely in both professional journals and the popular press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, and Fly Fisherman. Anderson received his B.S. from the University of Montana in 1968 and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington in 1972, after which he began his teaching career at Montana State University where he won several teaching awards. Anderson is an avid outdoorsman and a skilled bow hunter with a passion for hunting in Africa.

Daniel Benjamin is the alumni distinguished professor of economics at Clemson University and senior fellow at PERC. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia he obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from UCLA, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. Benjamin has taught at the University of California and the University of Washington and has been a National Fellow at Stanford University and a Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the University of Liverpool, England. In addition to having served as a staff economist with the President's Council of Economic Advisors, he has been deputy assistant secretary of labor and served as chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Labor. Benjamin is the author of numerous books including Undoing Drugs; a wide-ranging assessment of America's war on drugs. He has been associate editor of the scholarly journal, Economic Inquiry, and served on the executive committee of the Western Economic Association.

P.J. Hill is professor of economics at Wheaton College and a PERC senior fellow. His research and articles, especially on the evolution of property rights in the American West, helped found the New Resource Economics. He is coauthor of The Birth of a Transfer Society, Eco-Sanity: A Common Sense Guide to Environmentalism, and several articles including The Race for Property Rights, Property Rights as a Common Pool Resource, and Privatizing the Commons. Hill is coeditor with Terry Anderson of Water Marketing: The Next Generation (1997), Environmental Federalism (1998), and other volumes in PERC's Political Economy Forum Series. He was also coauthor with Terry Anderson of The Not So Wild, Wild West which won the 2005 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award. As an economic consultant, he has worked with the Bulgarian government in their attempts to privatize agricultural lands. Hill received his B.S. from Montana State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Donald Leal is a senior associate with PERC where he has been carrying out research in natural resource and environmental issues since 1985. He is coauthor with Terry L. Anderson of Free Market Environmentalism, revised edition, and Enviro-Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well, and has written numerous articles on such topics as privatizing ocean fisheries, water marketing for fish and wildlife, creating self-sustaining parks, and applying the trust concept to public lands. His current projects include assessing the impact of individual transferable quota programs in fishery management throughout the world and coediting a book documenting cases where government programs harm the environment.

Wally Thurman is a professor of agricultural and resource economics at North Carolina State University and a PERC senior fellow. He was a PERC 2003 Julian Simon fellow. He conducts research in the economics and political economy of agricultural and natural resource policy and has published widely on this topic. His published work includes empirical studies of quota schemes in the United States for peanuts and tobacco, analysis of the effects of the Clean Water and Clear Air Acts, and compensation schemes in the poultry industry. He currently is studying land trusts and the rise of markets for crop pollination services. Thurman holds a Ph.D. in conomics from the University of Chicago and is an editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

Hank Fischer is a natural resource consultant who operates a wildlife tour business, Fischer Outdoor Discoveries, with his wife, Carol. He is also a special projects coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation. From 1977-2002 he covered the Northern Rockies (Montana, Idaho and Wyoming) for Defenders of Wildlife. Fischer has been intensively involved with endangered species restoration, particularly with efforts involving wolves, grizzly bears and black-footed ferrets. In 1987 he created Defenders of Wildlife's Wolf Compensation Trust, which uses private funds to compensate livestock producers for verified livestock losses caused by wolves. In 1997 he created a similar program for grizzly bears. Fischer was a leader in the ten-year effort to restore wolves to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, chronicled in his 1995 book, Wolf Wars. More recently, he led a collaborative effort between conservationists, the timber industry and organized labor to restore grizzly bears to central Idaho. He has been involved in a variety of issues involving public lands and has led efforts to create statewide wildlife viewing systems for Montana and Idaho. Fischer is author of the Montana Wildlife Viewing Guide (1993) and was project director for the publication, Building Economic Incentives into the Endangered Species Act. He holds an M.S. in environmental studies from the University of Montana. He has won numerous awards, including the 2001 Edward Lowe Enviro-Capitalist Award.

Robert Clement is an independent consultant to a variety of businesses. His current clients include Clemson University and a number of law firms. Robert provides consulting in the areas of business strategy, business operations, project management, and antitrust economics. In addition, Robert has lectured at Clemson University, Consortium of Universities for International Studies in Asolo, Italy, and the University of Notre Dame. Previously, Robert had a 15-year career at Accenture, one of the world's largest technology consulting companies, from which he retired as a partner in 2004. Robert's work at Accenture included consulting with several of the world's largest telecommunications companies. He has also participated in a number of conferences on free market environmentalism at PERC, KCI, and the Liberty Fund. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Eydie and is an active member of the Advisory Board of the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta.

Neill Cameron is a career marketing and communications professional. He recently retired as President of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, one of the world's leading firms. Currently, he is Vice President of Clemson University in charge of activity with external audiences and a member of the executive council. Neill has been involved in brand building communications programs for clients like American Express, Shell Oil, IBM, Kimberly Clark, International Paper, Centers for Disease Control, Union Carbide, World Wildlife Fund and Eastman Kodak. He has won numerous industry awards, including National EFFIE's, CLIO's, and the 1995 Silver Medal for Advertising's Man of the Year. Neill is a frequent lecturer on marketing and communications topics, nationally and internationally.

He is a current and past member of several boards including the Atlanta Organizing Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games. Neill is a charter member of Quail Unlimited and currently supports, among others, Ducks Unlimited, South Carolina Waterfowl Association, The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund and the Predator Conservation Alliance.

He received a B.S. degree from Georgia State University, an MBA from Emory University and a certificate in International Business from the London Business School.

Thornton Kirby was named President and CEO of the South Carolina Hospital Association in January of 2005. As CEO, Mr. Kirby is responsible for accomplishing the organizational vision established by the Hospital Associations Board of Directors. That vision includes the development of collaborative relationships, not only with health care providers, but also with the state's business community. He is also responsible for coordinating advocacy efforts before the state legislature on behalf of all hospitals in South Carolina. Before joining the Hospital Association, Thornton worked as a health care attorney, a hospital administrator, and a university administrator.

Robert McCormick is professor emeritus of economics at Clemson University and a 2001 PERC Julian Simon Fellow. He was honored as the BB&T Scholar at Clemson University starting in the Fall of 2000 and was chosen as the MBA Professor of the Year for 2001. McCormick has served as a consultant to the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission. He regularly consults and advises companies on financial matters and provides expert courtroom testimony. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and the S.C. legislature on telecommunications and electricity deregulation and the future of these markets and has served as a consultant to the Treasury of New Zealand and the Canadian government. McCormick has been an associate editor of the academic journals, Journal of Corporate Finance and the Southern Economic Journal. He has published in a broad range of academic books and journals on public policy, managerial and financial economics, telecommunications and electricity markets, sports and economics, antitrust and industrial organization. McCormick received his B.A. and M.A. in economics from Clemson and received his Ph.D. degree in economics from Texas A&M University. His favorite pastimes are golf, woodworking, and plowing. A tree farmer and hunter, if he enjoys anything more than his tractor, it is a walk in the woods with his family.