Summit Day 1 Agenda

Hillary Mintz joined Waukesha County as public information officer in 2023 after more than a decade of working as a trusted journalist at WISN 12 News in Milwaukee. Mintz is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and 2022 recipient of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s “Best Live On-Scene Reporting” award in a large market. Now serving as PIO and press secretary for the Waukesha county executive, she oversees communications across multiple county departments to keep residents informed. She has also received certification from the Federal Emergency Management Agency as an advanced public information officer and serves as an adjunct professor in the Criminal Justice program at Waukesha County Technical College teaching “Media Relations for Law Enforcement.” She is also president of the Public Relations Society of America Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter.

George Packer is nationally recognized author and staff writer for The Atlantic.

In his latest book, “The Emergency,” a gripping novel that illuminates the crises of our time, Packer tells the story of a surgeon setting out into the countryside seeking human connection and community in a fallen empire. This page-turner takes us deep into the heart of our troubled moment and asks what we owe each other in a divided world.

In his book “Last Best Hope,”  selected as one of The New York Times’ 100 notable books of the year, Packer explores four narratives: Free America, which imagines a nation of separate individuals and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Smart America, the world view of Silicon Valley and the professional elite; Real America, the white Christian nationalism of the heartland; and Just America, which sees citizens as members of identity groups that inflict or suffer oppression. In lively and biting prose, Packer shows that none of these narratives can sustain a democracy. To point a more hopeful way forward, he looks for a common American identity and finds it in the passion for equality—the “hidden code”—that Americans of many persuasions have held for centuries.

In his 2016 book “The Unwinding,” a National Book Award Winner, Packer explored the rise of populism, institutional collapse, and the unraveling of the American Dream. In 2019, “The Unwinding” was named one of the “Top 50 Nonfiction Titles of the Past 25 Years” by Slate. Packer’s recent book “Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century” offered a vivid saga of the ambition, idealism, and hubris of Richard Holbrooke, one of the most legendary and complicated figures in recent American history.

Packer is the 2019 recipient of the Hitchens Prize, given in memory of the late Christopher Hitchens to a journalist or author who demonstrates a deep commitment to the pursuit of truth and free expression without concern for professional or personal consequences. He has published four other works of nonfiction: “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq,” “Interesting Times: Writings from a Turbulent Decade,” “Blood of the Liberals,” and “The Village of Waiting.” He is also the author of novels “The Half Man” and “Central Square” and a play, “Betrayed.” Packer is the editor of  “The Fight Is for Democracy: Winning the War of Ideas in America and the World” and of a two-volume edition of George Orwell’s essays. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

A starting defender on the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup championship team and the 2004 and 2008 Olympic gold medal teams, Markgraf is a National Soccer Hall of Fame inductee and NCAA Silver Anniversary Award winner. She played soccer professionally for 12 years, represented Team USA 201 times, and became the 10th woman in FIFA history to reach 200 international appearances.

After retiring, Markgraf earned master’s degrees in kinesiology and educational psychology, and her research has been published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. A former general manager of the U.S. Women’s National Team, she now lives in Milwaukee with her husband and three children, dividing her time between volunteer work, public speaking, and her role as a psychotherapist for a community mental health organization. She is also the founder of The 99ers, an organization representing her teammates from the historic 1999 World Cup win, whose continued impact on female athletes will be featured in a Netflix film releasing in 2027.

Nationally recognized author and staff writer for The Atlantic

Exploring the social, economic, and cultural forces shaping America and what they mean for leaders navigating uncertainty.

The last few years have exposed America’s glaring inequalities like never before. In this deeply divided moment, is there anything that can bring us together? George Packer says yes. Read his complete bio…

Katherine (Kathy) Cramer is the Virginia Sapiro professor of political science and Vilas research professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She joined the UW-Madison faculty in 2000 and has been a proud member of that campus community, her undergraduate alma mater, ever since. She is known for her innovative approach to the study of public opinion, in which she uses methods such as inviting herself into the conversations of groups of people to listen to the way they understand their connections to politics and government and to each other. She is the author or coauthor of six books including the 2026 book, with Larry Bartels, “The Politics of Social Change: From the Sixties to the Present Through the Eyes of a Generation” and the 2016 book “The Politics of Resentment,” which brought to light rural resentment toward cities and its implications for contemporary politics.

She is also known as a scholar who actively puts her knowledge into action. She recently cochaired the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on Reimagining Our Economy (CORE) and has worked with the Center for Constructive Communication at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the affiliated nonprofit Cortico since 2017 to create a platform and approach that aims to improve public understanding and policymaking. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.

Sam Rikkers is deputy secretary and chief operating officer for WEDC. Prior to joining WEDC in November 2019, he served as strategic economic initiatives director at the Wisconsin Department of Administration.

Rikkers has an extensive background in rural development, both in the U.S. and internationally. He served in the White House from 2013 to 2014 as director on the energy and environment team in the Presidential Personnel Office, then was administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service. Before returning to Wisconsin in 2017, he launched and led the Rural Opportunity Initiative of the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business. In Wisconsin, he served as executive director of Tiny Earth, a global initiative based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, harnessing the research of undergraduate students to discover new antibiotics.

A native of Stoughton, Rikkers holds a juris doctor from the University of Wisconsin Law School, a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University, and a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Macalester College. He also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson took office as acting mayor of Milwaukee in late 2021 and set out immediately to build a safer city. He has prioritized violence reduction, economic development, and roadway safety. Before becoming acting mayor, Johnson served as Common Council president while representing the city’s 2nd Aldermanic District.
In April 2022, Mayor Johnson was elected with more than 70% of the vote, becoming the first Black mayor elected in the city. His commitment to public service began at an early age when he was selected to participate in a precollege program for low-income students that instilled in him a passion to make Milwaukee better for future generations.

While he was growing up, his family moved frequently. He has seen violence, evictions, and food insecurity—challenges common in urban poverty. He brings that lived experience to his work as mayor.

After graduating from Bay View High School, Mayor Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before his election as alderman, he was a staff assistant in the Mayor’s Office, where he worked with community and faith leaders to find creative solutions to pressing issues facing families.

Satya Rhodes-Conway is the 58th mayor of Madison. Her administration is focused on providing high-quality public services, affordable housing, rapid transit, and equitable economic growth, and combating climate change. She has extensive experience in local policy and practice, having worked with mayors across the country for more than a decade and having served three terms on the Madison Common Council. Elected in 2019 and again in 2023, she is the city’s second female mayor and the first out LGBTQ person to serve as mayor of Madison.

Rhodes-Conway is chair emerita of Climate Mayors, an appointed member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Local Government Advisory Committee, a founding member of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, and a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. She serves on various committees and task forces for the United States Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.

Rhodes-Conway was born in New Mexico and grew up in Ithaca, New York. She has degrees from Smith College and the University of California-Irvine. She moved to Madison in 2002 and has lived here ever since.

Before being elected mayor, Rhodes-Conway was the managing director of the Mayors Innovation Project and a senior associate at the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 13 years. She worked with cities across the country to implement innovative policy and researched and wrote extensively about local policy that promotes sustainability, equity, and democracy. Rhodes-Conway served on the board of the UniverCity Alliance and is a member of American Federation of Teachers Local 223.

Before her time at UW, she analyzed state endangered species programs for Defenders of Wildlife, researched and wrote about progressive environmental policy at the State Environmental Resource Center, and taught undergraduate biology and ecology.

Rhodes-Conway and her partner, Amy Klusmeier, live on Madison’s East Side with their cats Pippin, Theo, and Henry.

Barry Hottmann is the mayor of the city of Dodgeville and a community development educator with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension, where he works with local governments, businesses, and community organizations to strengthen economic vitality across Iowa County.

As mayor, Hottmann has helped lead Dodgeville through a recent period of growth and transformation, balancing investments in housing, infrastructure, downtown revitalization, and economic development while maintaining a strong focus on long-term fiscal sustainability. His work centers on helping small communities navigate both the opportunities and challenges of growth, particularly when prosperity is experienced unevenly across residents, neighborhoods, and businesses.

Hottmann combines the perspective of an elected local leader with the experience of a community development professional, allowing him to connect data, policy, and practical implementation. His work focuses on helping communities embrace growth while ensuring its benefits are broadly shared and aligned with a long-term vision for economic resilience. He is passionate about building partnerships that create lasting opportunities for residents, businesses, and future generations.

In 2017, Jim Paine was first elected mayor of his hometown. He promised the people of Superior that he would lead the city with the same passion, energy, and vision that he has put into everything he’s done. Two successful reelections later, Paine has spent every day working, learning, planning, and then working some more to make Superior a better place.

Emily McFarland joined the League of Wisconsin Municipalities in 2026 and serves as executive director. She is the sixth executive director since the organization was founded in 1898. Working with the League board and staff, she is responsible for engaging appointed and elected city and village officials in the state legislative process and advancing policies that support strong, vibrant Wisconsin communities. A lifelong public servant, her experience spans federal, state, county, and local government. McFarland previously served on the Watertown Common Council before being elected as the city’s first female and youngest mayor. Throughout her career, she has remained committed to building strong communities to create a stronger Wisconsin.

Lorance Uwinaza serves as the business engagement and young professionals director at the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce. In her role, she builds relationships with local businesses, connects employers with chamber resources, and leads Young Professionals of the Chippewa Valley, a program focused on helping emerging professionals build meaningful connections, develop as leaders, and become more engaged in their community.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with a degree in business management, Uwinaza brings experience in hospitality, coworking, real estate, and community engagement. Her work gives her a firsthand view of the opportunities and challenges facing young professionals, including career growth, financial stability, belonging, and the ability to build a future in the communities where they live and work.

Uwinaza is passionate about making people feel heard, supported, and connected to opportunities that help them thrive.

Katherine (Kathy) Cramer is the Virginia Sapiro professor of political science and Vilas research professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She joined the UW-Madison faculty in 2000 and has been a proud member of that campus community, her undergraduate alma mater, ever since. She is known for her innovative approach to the study of public opinion, in which she uses methods such as inviting herself into the conversations of groups of people to listen to the way they understand their connections to politics and government and to each other. She is the author or coauthor of six books including the 2026 book, with Larry Bartels, “The Politics of Social Change: From the Sixties to the Present Through the Eyes of a Generation” and the 2016 book “The Politics of Resentment,” which brought to light rural resentment toward cities and its implications for contemporary politics.

She is also known as a scholar who actively puts her knowledge into action. She recently cochaired the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on Reimagining Our Economy (CORE) and has worked with the Center for Constructive Communication at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the affiliated nonprofit Cortico since 2017 to create a platform and approach that aims to improve public understanding and policymaking. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.

Katherine P. Frank became the eighth chancellor of University of Wisconsin-Stout Polytechnic in March 2020 after a distinguished career as an administrator and faculty member.

During her time at UW-Stout Polytechnic, Frank has led efforts to codify and amplify the university’s distinct mission as Wisconsin’s polytechnic university in Board of Regents’ policy documents and a formal university name change, the first throughout the Universities of Wisconsin since 1971. The university has celebrated a balanced budget, enrollment gains, major capital investments, increase in research expenditures, and fundraising successes under Frank’s leadership.

Frank serves in leadership roles for several national boards and councils, including the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, National Collegiate Athletic Association, and Alliance for Innovation and Transformation. She is actively engaged throughout the state, region, and local community through her work with such organizations as the Wisconsin Technology Council, Momentum West, the Menomonie Area Chamber and Visitor Center, and the Greater Menomonie Development Corporation.

Before her appointment at UW-Stout Polytechnic, Frank served in administrative and faculty roles at Central Washington University, Northern Kentucky University, Indiana University East, and Colorado State University Pueblo.

Frank, the first female leader of UW-Stout Polytechnic, grew up in Colorado and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. She has master’s and doctorate degrees in English from the University of Washington in Seattle. Her research interests include romantic and Victorian English literature, rhetoric and composition, the scholarship of teaching, and academic leadership.

Layla Merrifield was appointed president of the Wisconsin Technical College System in September 2024. Before this role, she served as executive director of the Wisconsin Technical College District Boards Association from 2015, representing the trustees of the 16 district boards of Wisconsin’s technical colleges. Prior to that, she worked as a fiscal analyst for the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau and later as a policy adviser for the Wisconsin Technical College System.

Merrifield brings extensive experience in Systemwide leadership and advocacy, with deep knowledge of local colleges’ operations, student success goals, and challenges. Over the past nine years, she has excelled in maintaining consistent communication among various stakeholder groups.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in politics from Hendrix College.

Natalie Yahr is a reporter for the statewide news nonprofit Wisconsin Watch, where she writes about how Wisconsin’s schools and institutions are preparing people for family-sustaining jobs and how they could do better. Her stories have explained why foreign-trained doctors often struggle to restart their careers in Wisconsin, what’s keeping Wisconsin high schools from offering more college classes, and what Wisconsinites need to know about the latest changes to financial aid and student loans.

Previously, she covered the Madison-area economy for the Cap Times, where she tracked local union drives, explored why home care workers in Wisconsin make so little, investigated a moving company whose surprise bills sometimes topped $30,000, and profiled more than 60 local entrepreneurs.

Yahr’s work has been published by the New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, WWNO-FM, Scalawag, and the Center for Journalism Ethics. She’s received awards from the Milwaukee Press Club, the Society for Professional Journalists, and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.  “Why Should I Tell You?,” her 2019 guide to less-extractive reporting, has been read by journalists and added to journalism school curricula across the country.

Before becoming a full-time journalist, Natalie lived in New Orleans, where she trained as a Spanish-English interpreter and coached adult students working to earn their high school equivalency diplomas.

Jeremy Gragert was elected president of the Eau Claire City Council earlier this year and previously served two terms on the City Council from 2018 to 2024. Since graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire more than 20 years ago, Gragert has championed downtown redevelopment, environmental sustainability, and expanded bike, pedestrian, and public transit transportation options. Gragert served in AmeriCorps between 2006 and 2008 and received a Governor’s Service Award from Governor Jim Doyle, and joined the board of directors for Downtown Eau Claire Inc. (DECI) in 2007. Since 2022, Gragert has worked full time for Citizen Action of Wisconsin as a community organizer, and in the past has worked for the Chippewa Valley Museum, the University of Wisconsin-Stout, and the Wisconsin Bike Fed. He is also a former consultant for Clean Wisconsin and the National Wildlife Federation on environmental policy and tackling the climate crisis.

Bio to follow

Natalie Yahr is a reporter for the statewide news nonprofit Wisconsin Watch, where she writes about how Wisconsin’s schools and institutions are preparing people for family-sustaining jobs and how they could do better. Her stories have explained why foreign-trained doctors often struggle to restart their careers in Wisconsin, what’s keeping Wisconsin high schools from offering more college classes, and what Wisconsinites need to know about the latest changes to financial aid and student loans.

Previously, she covered the Madison-area economy for the Cap Times, where she tracked local union drives, explored why home care workers in Wisconsin make so little, investigated a moving company whose surprise bills sometimes topped $30,000, and profiled more than 60 local entrepreneurs.

Yahr’s work has been published by the New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, WWNO-FM, Scalawag, and the Center for Journalism Ethics. She’s received awards from the Milwaukee Press Club, the Society for Professional Journalists, and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.  “Why Should I Tell You?,” her 2019 guide to less-extractive reporting, has been read by journalists and added to journalism school curricula across the country.

Before becoming a full-time journalist, Natalie lived in New Orleans, where she trained as a Spanish-English interpreter and coached adult students working to earn their high school equivalency diplomas.

Katherine (Kathy) Cramer is the Virginia Sapiro professor of political science and Vilas research professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She joined the UW-Madison faculty in 2000 and has been a proud member of that campus community, her undergraduate alma mater, ever since. She is known for her innovative approach to the study of public opinion, in which she uses methods such as inviting herself into the conversations of groups of people to listen to the way they understand their connections to politics and government and to each other. She is the author or coauthor of six books including the 2026 book, with Larry Bartels, “The Politics of Social Change: From the Sixties to the Present Through the Eyes of a Generation” and the 2016 book “The Politics of Resentment,” which brought to light rural resentment toward cities and its implications for contemporary politics.

She is also known as a scholar who actively puts her knowledge into action. She recently cochaired the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on Reimagining Our Economy (CORE) and has worked with the Center for Constructive Communication at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the affiliated nonprofit Cortico since 2017 to create a platform and approach that aims to improve public understanding and policymaking. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.

Emily McFarland joined the League of Wisconsin Municipalities in 2026 and serves as executive director. She is the sixth executive director since the organization was founded in 1898. Working with the League board and staff, she is responsible for engaging appointed and elected city and village officials in the state legislative process and advancing policies that support strong, vibrant Wisconsin communities. A lifelong public servant, her experience spans federal, state, county, and local government. McFarland previously served on the Watertown Common Council before being elected as the city’s first female and youngest mayor. Throughout her career, she has remained committed to building strong communities to create a stronger Wisconsin.

Hillary Mintz joined Waukesha County as public information officer in 2023 after more than a decade of working as a trusted journalist at WISN 12 News in Milwaukee. Mintz is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and 2022 recipient of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association’s “Best Live On-Scene Reporting” award in a large market. Now serving as PIO and press secretary for the Waukesha county executive, she oversees communications across multiple county departments to keep residents informed. She has also received certification from the Federal Emergency Management Agency as an advanced public information officer and serves as an adjunct professor in the Criminal Justice program at Waukesha County Technical College teaching “Media Relations for Law Enforcement.” She is also president of the Public Relations Society of America Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter.