2009 Pennsylvania
Leadership Conference

What Pennsylvania Needs

Moderator:

Susan Staub, Pennsylvanians for Right to Work

Panelists:

Hon. Jeff Piccola, State Senator

Hon. Kathy Rapp, State Representative

John Trombetta, Fd for Free Enterprise Education

Jeff Zeh, SE PA Associated Builders & Contractors

Friday, March 27, 2009

2:00 - 3:00 pm

Moderator:


Susan Staub

• Susan Staub, Pennsylvanians for Right to Work (click for bio)

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Susan Staub is President and Treasurer of Pennsylvanians for Right to Work, Inc. and the Pennsylvania Right to Work Defense and Education Foundation, Inc. and serves on the Boards of Directors and Trustees of each organization. She is also the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Right to Work Political Action Committee.

She is a former Vice President of the National Right to Work Committee and Director of the Committee's education division, Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism.

Mrs. Staub is Vice President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association Foundation and the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association.

Mrs. Staub is serving as Chairman of the Foundation for Free Enterprise Education, the sponsor of Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week (PFEW). She is a voluntary teacher and Stockholder's Presentation judge each summer for PFEW.

She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research, the Commonwealth Good Government Political Action Committee, and on the Advisory Board of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.

Additionally, she has served three 3-year terms on the West Shore Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and received the 2004 Les Ginanni Business and Community Connection Award from the Chamber.

Mrs. Staub is among the founders of the Pennsylvania Leadership Council and currently serves on its Board of Directors. She has been a presenter at each Pennsylvania Leadership Conference since its inception in 1989.

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Panelists:

Hon. Jeff Piccola

• Hon. Jeff Piccola, State Senator (click for bio)

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Senator Jeffrey E. Piccola was born and raised in Susquehanna Township, where he graduated from the public school system in 1966. He is also a graduate of Gettysburg College and Washington University Law School, and served as a first lieutenant in the United States Air Force.

Piccola won a special election for the 15th Senatorial District in November 1995 and was reelected four times.  From 2001 through 2006, he served as Majority Whip, the third ranking member of the Senate Republican Leadership Team. Prior to his Senate service, Piccola served 19 years in the House of Representatives.

In the Senate, Piccola currently serves as Chairman of the Education Committee. He also serves as a member of the Committees on Community, Economic and Recreational Development, Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure, Judiciary, and Rules and Executive Nominations.

Piccola's legislative priorities include education, health care, improving our business climate, property tax elimination, revitalizing our cities, and government reform including reducing its cost.

Most recently, he authored the "Property Rights Protection Act," historic legislation designed to prevent the abuse of eminent domain powers.

He secured passage of the Educational Empowerment Act, landmark legislation for poorly performing school districts in the state, including the Harrisburg School District.

He has championed efforts to pass meaningful tort reform including the successful passage of joint and several liability reform and medical malpractice relief.

He has also worked diligently on issues of importance to urban areas, spearheading passage of the first laws in decades to fight absentee and slum landlord abuses.

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Hon. Kathy Rapp

• Hon. Kathy Rapp, State Representative (click for bio)

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Beginning her third term on Jan. 6, 2009, State Representative Kathy Rapp brings to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives vast experience in both the public and private sectors to represent the people of the 65th Legislative Districts in Forest, McKean and Warren counties.

Throughout 2007-08, as a member of the House Education Committee, Rapp became a leading voice contributing to the defeat of the governor's $19 million high school graduation testing mandate and cast her fourth consecutive NO vote on the state budget due to the Rendell administration's extremely flawed education funding formula, which once again, inequitably robbed financially-distressed rural Pennsylvania schools in order to over-pay Philadelphia school districts.

In appreciation for her dedicated and courageous leadership in opposition to compulsory unionism and in advancing the right to work principle in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Pennsylvanians for Right to Work awarded Rapp with the 2008 Statesman of the Year Award.

In addition, Rapp was recently recognized by National Federation of Independent Business Pennsylvania chapter with the 2007-08 Guardian of Small Business Award. Rapp is one of less than 60 state House members to earn an "A" ranking during the 2007-08 legislative session for supporting small businesses on such key issues as affordable health insurance, tort reform, protecting private property rights and lower taxes. This is Rapp's second consecutive Guardian of Small Business Award.

A consistent advocate for fiscal responsibility and government reform, Rapp is also among a select group of Pennsylvania lawmakers to earn an "A" grade on both the 2006 and 2008 Liberty Index Report Cards on the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the governor.

In July 2005 she voted against the state government pay raise, refused to accept any unvouchered expenses and became one of the first Northwestern Pennsylvania lawmakers to openly push for its final repeal in November 2005.

Rapp lives in Warren and is the mother of a son and two daughters and is a grandmother of three grandsons. The 65th District includes all of Forest and Warren counties as well as Hamilton, Hamlin, Lafayette and Wetmore townships and Kane and Mount Jewett boroughs in McKean County.

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John Trombetta

• John Trombetta, Fd for Free Enterprise Education (click for bio)

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John Trombetta is the president and chief executive officer of the Foundation for Free Enterprise Education, the organization that each year presents the programs "Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week" and "Pennsylvania Business Adventure." PFEW, as it is more commonly known, is the nationally and internationally acclaimed business education program for high school students presented each year by the private sector in Pennsylvania. Supported by more than 700 companies statewide, PFEW annually graduates 1,800+ students from both public and private schools throughout the Commonwealth. A winner of the 1987 National Award for Excellence in Economic Education conferred by the Freedoms Foundation in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week has been instrumental in establishing similar economic education programs in twenty-five other states as well as in the countries of Australia and New Zealand. "Business Adventures" are regionally run programs for 9th and 10th graders focused on local workforce development initiatives.

Mr. Trombetta currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association. He is a former president of the Northwest Pennsylvania Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and he served as a member of the Northwest Pennsylvania Youth Investment Council of the Regional Workforce Investment Board. He has twice been the chairman of the International Business Week Conference that annually brings together executives of programs similar to Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week from across the globe.

A graduate of the Pennsylvania State University with a B. S. in the Administration of Criminal Justice, Mr. Trombetta served for six years as the Chief County Detective for the District Attorney's Office of Erie County. Prior to his appointment with the District Attorney's Office, he had previously served for eight years in Erie County's Adult Division of Probation and Parole Services.

He was appointed to his present position as president of the Foundation for Free Enterprise Education in July of 1989.

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Jeff Zeh

• Jeff Zeh, SE PA Associated Builders & Contractors (click for bio)

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Jeff has served as President & CEO of the Southeast Pennsylvania Chapter Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. since March 1999. Jeff also serves on the Board of Directors of Pennsylvanians For Right to Work. Before joining ABC, Jeff served as a consultant to management specializing in legislative, regulatory, labor relations, human resource and strategic planning issues. Prior to that Jeff served as International President of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, a rail union representing construction employees on virtually all railroads in the United States and Canada. Jeff started his career with the Washington, DC law offices of Mulholland, Hickey & Lyman, representing transportation union clients.

Jeff's educational background includes a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University and law degree from George Washington University Law School. He resides in Blue Bell, PA with his wife Chrys and two sons Jason and Justin.

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