URBANDALE – Seven grassroots Republican leaders, including Dallas
County Recorder Chad Airhart, have joined Pawlenty for President's Iowa
steering committee.
The group includes Airhart, Fayette County GOP Chair Jim Kirkpatrick,
Des Moines attorneys Brian Rickert and William Gustoff, former Mike
Huckabee aide Aubrie Johnson, former Iowa GOP Victory program treasurer
Mark Havlicek and Des Moines businessman Nick Gerhart.
“In Tim Pawlenty I see a man who isn't afraid to take on the serious
challenges facing America. But more than talk, he has actually taken on
many of these issues while serving as the governor of Minnesota,"
Airhart said. "He applied common sense conservative principles to
government in Minnesota and moved his state in the right direction.
Beyond his conservative record of accomplishment, I have been impressed
by Gov. Tim Pawlenty's personal story. I know he understands the
problems facing the average American, and I am confident that his
solutions will help Americans across the spectrum move closer to
achieving the American dream."
Airhart, a former director of the Waukee Area Chamber of Commerce who
was named one of central Iowa’s Forty Under 40 business
leaders, defeated a 22-year incumbent in 2010 to become the Dallas
County Recorder. Months into his first term as recorder, Airhart
was elected chairman of the Iowa Republican County Officials
Association. In 2003, he went to work for Victory ’04, and directed 22
counties in southwest Iowa for the Bush/Cheney campaign. Months before
Election Day, he was moved to manage Iowa’s largest county, Polk
County. In 2004, Iowa was carried by the Republican presidential
nominee for the first time in 20 years. Airhart then went to work for
the U.S. Congress, where he directed the Creston office of U.S. Rep.
Steve King. He left that position in the summer of 2006 to work for
Governor Mitt Romney’s Commonwealth PAC before serving as Iowa
coalition director for Romney’s presidential campaign.
Kirkpatrick is the first county chair in Iowa to endorse Gov. Pawlenty
for president. A certified financial planner, Kirkpatrick is a
longtime veteran of Iowa politics and previously served as a Fayette
County chairman for the presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush,
George W. Bush and former U.S. Fred Thompson of Tennessee. He also
served as a “bus captain” for the crucial Ames Straw Poll for Mitt
Romney in 2007 and George W. Bush in 1999.
Gerhart is Vice President of Compliance and Regulatory Affairs for
Sammons Financial Group. Prior to entering the insurance
industry, Nick was a private practice attorney focusing on corporate
and health care matters. He is vice chair of the Des Moines Partnership
Government Policy Council 2010-2011 and will serve as Chair 2011-2012.
He serves as a state board member and public affairs director for
the March of Dimes and served as Chair of March of Dimes-Central Iowa
Division for two years prior to that. Gerhart is a former
Polk-Des Moines Taxpayers Association board member, former treasurer
for Urbandale Dollars for Scholars and a 2010 Graduate of the Des
Moines Leadership Institute.
Rickert is an attorney at BrownWinick, the state’s third-largest law
firm. Listed in “Best Lawyers of America 2008®,” he serves as
corporate counsel to a number of businesses across the state. He
also chairs the firm’s construction law practice group. A graduate of
the University of Iowa with a finance degree and the Drake University
Law School, Rickert is a trustee on the West Des Moines Water Works
Board and a member of the Blank Park advisory board. He is a former
member of the West Des Moines Development Corp., and a former officer
and board member of the Salvation Army. He participated in the
West Des Moines Leadership Academy, the Greater Des Moines Leadership
Institute, and Leadership Iowa programs and was named one of central
Iowa’s top business leaders in the Forty Under 40 Program.
Havlicek has served in several key finance and technology roles for
political organizations, including Iowa treasurer for Pawlenty's
Freedom First PAC, finance director for the Iowa GOP Victory Program
and Iowa E-Chairman for the 2004 Bush/Cheney re-election campaign. He
has nearly 20 years of executive level personnel and technology
initiative management experience in both public and private companies.
He has been the director of project management at Berkley
Technology Services in Urbandale since 2005.
Gustoff is a Des Moines attorney who advocates for educational choice,
individual liberty, and accountable government. In
addition to his primary role as a planning attorney consulting with
nonprofit foundations and development offices, he is also a founding
partner of the Whitaker Hagenow GBMG law firm and a registered lobbyist
at the Iowa legislature for educational choice issues.
Johnson is the chief operating officer and office manager for the
Whitaker Hagenow GBMG law firm in Des Moines. She formerly was the
statewide events and operations director for Bob Vander Plaats’ 2010
gubernatorial campaign. She also played a role in eight states for Mike
Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign, beginning with her efforts as a
successful field coordinator in Iowa, overseeing one of three regional
campaign offices in South Carolina and continuing on as a member of the
national advance team. A former English teacher in Chengdu, China,
Johnson also has been active in Concerned Women for America as a
legislative liaison in Washington, D.C.