Micah Salazar
Micah grew up in a conservative family in Orange County, and originally wanted to pursue a career in firefighting. In high school he started working for Lorrain Lim catering who caters all of the Reagan Ranch lunches and Round Table events. While catering a YAF High School Conference lunch at the Ranch, he spoke with […]
Rayna Laakso
Rayna Laakso serves as the event coordinator at YAF’s Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara. In this position, she facilitates the planning and the execution of events at the Center and Rancho del Cielo. Rayna is originally from Montana and graduated summa cum laude from Rocky Mountain College (RMC) in Billings, Montana, in 2022. She […]
Tyler Rasmussen
In August, Tyler Rasmussen joined YAF’s team as a ranch hand at Rancho del Cielo. He is excited to be working at President Reagan’s Western White House. Tyler graduated from Santa Ynez High School in 2020 and loves sports and the outdoors. Most recently, he has worked with his father, learning the construction trade. Tyler […]
Madeleine Tate
Madeleine Tate joined Young America’s Foundation’s team at our national headquarters as a program assistant for digital media. Before her time at YAF, Madeleine worked in pro-life ministry at a local pregnancy center in Falls Church, Virginia. There she worked as the client services director, counseling women through pregnancy decisions and crisis pregnancies. In addition, […]
Emily Butler
Emily, senior director of marketing and social media. discovered YAF through her experience as the director of marketing at the Daily Wire. While there, she built the company’s social media team and ran all marketing and social media efforts for the Daily Wire hosts’ YAF events, even accompanying Ben Shapiro on his now- famous trip […]
Charlie Jones
Charlie Jones serves as a program officer for YAF chapter services, working with Young Americans for Freedom chapters across the country to promote conservative ideas on our nation’s high school and college campuses. Charlie is a graduate of Michigan State University (MSU), where he double majored in international relations and political theory & constitutional democracy. […]
Damaris Martinez
Damaris Martinez joined YAF’s team as the office operations coordinator for the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home in Dixon, Illinois. As a child living in California, Damaris grew up listening to stories of her mother’s life in Cuba under Fidel Castro’s Communist regime. Damaris’s grandfather was a political prisoner in Cuba for 21 years. Upon his […]
Hunter Morrow
Hunter Morrow serves as a program officer for campus advancement for Young America’s Foundation. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa (UI), where he founded the Young Americans for Freedom chapter. Hunter helped Iowa YAF host influential speakers during his four-year chairmanship at UI, including Bay Buchanan, Elisha Krauss, Burt Folsom, and Vice […]
Becket Adams
YAF is excited to welcome journalist Becket Adams to our National Journalism Center (NJC) team at the Foundation’s national headquarters. Adams got his start in journalism more than a decade ago. As a member of NJC’s 2010 fall program, Adams served as a research assistant to the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso, aiding in producing and […]
Aléjandro Flores
Nick Baker
Nick Baker serves as the assistant editor of Young America’s Foundation’s campus news publication, the New Guard. Nick studied economics, political science, and Catholic studies at Saint Louis University and The Catholic University of America. He is currently working on attaining a master’s degree through the Illinois Institute of Technology. He first got involved with […]
Madison Hahn
Madison serves as Staff Attorney for the Foundation. She works closely with the Chief Counsel and Deputy Counsel on all legal matters that affect the Foundation. She is especially excited to support YAFers on campus as they express their First Amendment rights. Madison graduated summa cum laude from Kennesaw State University with a BA in […]
Matt Cutler
Matt joined Young America’s Foundation in January 2022 as a senior development officer at the Reagan Ranch Center. Prior to joining YAF, Cutler served for six years as the director of development at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy (SPP). In this role, he worked closely with the dean and other senior leadership to […]
Michael Mastrianna
Michael joined Young America’s Foundation as associate director of YAF’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise. In his role, Michael works to educate and inspire students to embrace free market policies and solutions through state-of-art conferences, lectures, and educational content. A Connecticut native, Michael attended Eastern Connecticut State University and graduated in 2016. During his […]
Abby Drass
Abby joined Young America’s Foundation’s team as a graphic designer at YAF’s national headquarters. Abby and her husband are originally from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, just outside of the beautiful city of Philadelphia. As an emerging graphic and interactive designer, Abby aims to break complicated information down to a level that is easily absorbed and understood […]
Jerry Schnake
Jerry Schnake serves as Young America’s Foundation’s volunteer trainer and coordinator at the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home. His love of Dixon, Illinois, and its local history drew him to the Reagan Home. Jerry has lived in Dixon since 1963. He also lived in Woodland Hills California for 2.5 years pursuing a career in the music […]
Paul Matthews
Paul Matthews (CPA, CFA®) joined Young America’s Foundation as chief financial officer (CFO). In many ways, this appointment marked a return to the organization, as Paul had previously worked with the Foundation as a student at Wabash College in the early 1990s. Specifically, as an incoming college freshman, Paul attended YAF’s 1991 National Conservative Student […]
Kelleigh Clarke
Jaime Hahn
An Atlanta-area native, Jaime graduated from Kennesaw State University in 2020 with a B.S. in organizational and professional communication. After co-founding the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at her school in 2017, Jaime attended her first YAF conference. Her chapter hosted Katie Pavlich, Rachel Campos-Duffy, and Michael Knowles. Additionally, her chapter organized YAF’s 9/11: Never […]
Ilinca Biggs
Ilinca Biggs is a development officer and events manager at Young America’s Foundation. Before joining the team, Ilinca graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a major in Political Science and International and Global Studies. Ilinca immigrated to America from Romania with her family when she was 11 years old. Because she […]
Adam Ochs
Adam Ochs currently serves as a member of our Reagan Ranch Center staff in Santa Barbara. He grew up in a conservative family in Northern California. After looking for an organization to grow his conservative values, he discovered YAF. He first got involved as a student attending our conferences in high school, and like most […]
Vera Markov
Vera grew up in the former USSR where she and her family were regularly oppressed for their conservative and Christian beliefs. She left Ukraine to obtain a degree in nursing in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she also met her husband. They moved to the United States in 1992 in an effort to leave behind the […]
Breana Marsh
Breana became involved with Young America’s Foundation her senior year at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. During her time at GCU, Breana served as a board member of her Young Americans for Freedom chapter (GCU YAF). GCU YAF hosted numerous speakers through Young America’s Foundation, including Andrew Klavan, Michael Knowles, and Allie Stuckey. The […]
Madison Habersetzer
As conference director at the Reagan Ranch Center, Madison Habersetzer is responsible for outreach to students on the West Coast. She helps equip students with the resources and skills they need to effectively defend conservative values on campus and to inspire more students to stand up for freedom! Madison is originally from Washington State and […]
