Voices of Freedom - Interview with Shari Williams

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

An Interview with Shari Williams, President, Leadership Program of the Rockies The ability to preserve liberty depends on visionary leaders who not only understand America's founding principles, but who are also prepared to put them into practice. Yet there are few opportunities for emerging leaders to form deep connections between these timeless ideas and today's challenges. For more than two decades, the Leadership Program of the Rockies has been meeting that need by educating and training emerging leaders in America's founding principles and equipping them with the skills to influence public policy and culture. Our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom is Shari Williams, President of the Leadership Program of the Rockies. Since founding LPR in 2003, she has built it into one of the country's premier leadership development programs, training more than 2,500 alumni who have gone on to serve as elected officials, judges, business and community leaders, and influential voices across Colorado and beyond. With more than 40 years of experience in public policy, political campaigns, and leadership development, Shari has dedicated her career to building what she calls an "Army for Freedom." Topics Discussed on this Episode: What drew Shari to focus on leadership development and why LPR focuses on culture and the way communities think about freedom Why LPR's mission is more important now than ever The transformation participants experience and stories of alumni impact The vision for LPR's Great Lakes expansion What gives Shari hope about preserving American principles for future generations

Hello and welcome to Voices of Freedom, a Bradley Foundation podcast. I'm Rick Graber, President and CEO of the Bradley Foundation. On the podcast, we'll explore issues that affect our freedoms with a focus on free enterprise, free speech, and educational freedom. So let's get started. The ability to preserve liberty depends on visionary leaders who not only understand America's founding principles, but who are also prepared to put them into practice.

yet there are precious few opportunities for emerging leaders to form deep connections between these timeless ideas and today's challenges. For more than two decades, the Leadership Program of the Rockies has been meeting that need by educating and training emerging leaders in America's founding principles and equipping them with the skills to influence policy and our culture. Through a rigorous nine-month program, LPR has trained more than nine-monthsuffer. 2,500 alumni who have gone on to serve as elected officials, judges, business and community leaders, and influential voices not only across Colorado, but also across our country.

Our guest today has led this organization since its inception in 2003 and has built it into one of the country's premier leadership development programs. While based in Colorado, LPR now attracts participants from across the state. the country and is even working to expand its model to Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region. Of course, Wisconsin is the home of the Bradley Foundation. Shari Williams is the president of the leadership program of the Rockies. With more than 40 years of experience in public policy, political campaigns, and leadership development, she has dedicated her career to building what she calls an army for freedom.

Shari, welcome to Voices of Freedom. It is wonderful to have you. Thanks so much for joining us. Oh, thanks, Rick. It's a pleasure to be here. Let's jump in, Shari, and let's talk a little bit about you. As we mentioned, you founded LPR in 2003, a while ago now. You've worked in political campaigns. I know you had a busy career in politics for a time, but also strategic consulting, philanthropy. And again, you've been doing this for more than 40 years. But thinking, back, what drew you to focus specifically on leadership development, training emerging leaders in America's founding principles? How'd you get there? Well, Rick, you probably didn't intend for me to go this deep, but it all started when I was in the fifth grade. And it's funny because I organized the fourth and

fifth and sixth graders on my elementary school playground to yell about a teacher that was really terrible. And so I got them all to yell, we hate Mr. Stooky, we hate Mr. Stooky. And they all did it. Well, I got called into the principal's office and my parents were called in. And the teacher and the principal said that I was taking over the school at the time. And luckily, my parents had the good sense to understand that I was just exercising good executive leadership early on. And I didn't get in too much trouble. But I kind of learned a lesson that's been a thematic for my whole life. So back then, I was a yeller. I got all the kids to yell. And in fact, nothing changed. Nothing changed at all. But we were active and we were going to show those teachers. And so I now say that there's people that are yellers,

there's people that are tellers, and there are people that are sellers. And so I've transitioned in my life from being a yeller to trying to be a seller. And so for years, I was running around the country and I was the first campaign manager in the country to pass term limits. And that was really good, but we only did it in 24 states. And lots of people want it, but it didn't really change the culture of Washington. I've worked with politicians and I've helped get senators and congressmen and governors elected. But they are often a reflection of the culture. And that's as the founders intended it. So I've moved my life toward this idea of being a seller. And right now, what you see is a 50-50 kind of country where we're all having this chaotic,

crazy debate and nobody's really talking to one another. And so my effort now is trying to get people to understand how do you understand principles, how do you understand persuasion, put those together, and then you want to get public policy change. And so at the leadership program with the Rockies, that's what we do. And that's kind of where I've moved my career. I want to be a seller and not a yeller anymore. Fantastic. I got to ask.

Did you pass Mr. Stokey's class? I did, unbelievably. But, you know, it really didn't change anything. And I look back on that and think how often in life I've been around yellers, but it doesn't change the culture. and I'm all about culture change. Right, right. One of your longtime board members, Bob Schaefer,

said that you recognize that we needed to move further ahead than politics and start focusing on the culture of communities, the way people think, the way they think about freedom. You started to talk about that, but talk a bit more, elaborate. So, you know, as a person that did politics all my life, I mean, I went to national conventions, and I worked on campaigns, and I'm still a bit of a political junkie. But the politicians are a reflection of the culture.

And so I've started to dive deeper into figuring out who are cultural influencers. And what we found is that you can find people that are kind of the leaders within their community that aren't necessarily the elected people. And so they might be doctors or they might be educators, that they might be homeschool moms or all sorts of kind of things. But they're the go-to-trusted source. But if those people have the right principles and are persuasive, you can change the world.

And so at the Leadership Program of the Rockies, what we do is we recruit people, we interview them. They have to go through a serious interview. And then we select about 65 people to go through this nine-month program. So once a month for the entire day, they come in and we teach them about the Declaration of Independence, the morality of capitalism, how to make a good argument, how to withstand some of the debate and the building blocks of liberty. And so what we do is we have an interactive experience.

So they don't just hear about it from speakers, but they're tested and they're tested on the spot. And the reason that we're doing that is we found that people have more of a profound, life-changing experience if they're tested and they put their premises immediately to the test. And so if you do that, what you get is people that are more confident and people that can articulate the principles that our founders actually set up for the country that should be working. But you know as well as I do that in education, we don't teach civics very much anymore. I'm saying that broadly. We know lots of people that have good civics education.

but broadly, education doesn't focus on civics. And so there's a whole bunch of adults out there that know they love their country and they're very patriotic, but they can't articulate the ideas and the essential things that make our country work and make it exceptional. So our job is to find those influencers, arm them with the right ideas, give them a network of people that they can bounce these ideas off of and organize with, and then send them out into their communities, and they do amazing, miraculous things. Talk a little bit more about the recruiting process.

You say you pick about 65 a year. From what I know, these people are coming from different professions, different age groups, right? Yes. How do you narrow that down? How do you find the people and how do you make the decisions on who makes the cut and who In a way, that's our kind of secret sauce. It makes us different than any other organization in the country. What we do is we head hunt and we look for people. We don't create leaders. We find people who are already leaders. And what we do is we arm them with a different way of thinking

that clarifies their thinking. So what we do is we have people literally from 21 up to 85. And what we're looking for us people who already have a sphere of influence and have the fertility for these ideas. So we go out and we say, you're going to go through an interview and a lot of our alumni, we have 2,500 of them, they go out and headhunt for us and they say, hey, this person seems to have a sphere of influence or this person seems to love these ideas or this person really wants to make a difference in their community. And what we do is we recruit them through a bunch of recruitment events and they come and they hear about what we're doing and they're like, huh, this sounds a little different than I thought.

I thought this was just a political organization. It was going to be all about party politics. And then they say, this actually is something that will change my life. So they apply online and then they go through, we screen them and then we go through an interview process. It's only a 15 minute interview, but we make it a tough interview. So they have five minutes to present to us whatever they want, and you learn a lot in five minutes. And then with a three-person panel, we do a battery of questions, and real quickly, we can find out what their values are.

Are they articulate? Do they think correctly? Do they able to handle challenges? And are they up to the task of going through our program? And you know pretty well after 15 minutes whether this is a real candidate. I bet it is. In fact, 15 minutes is about just the right amount of time. A lot of people like, oh, you must have hours long.

And we're like, no, if someone has to edit themselves and only give a five-minute presentation, their choice in what they choose to tell you, tells you a lot about their values and what they care about. And so real quickly we can figure out, I once had a neurosurgeon that didn't get into the program. And he called me up later and he said, sorry, I'm probably one of the smartest people you've ever met. I said, absolutely. And he said, how come I didn't get in the program? I said, because you weren't willing to learn anything and we didn't think you would teach others. And so you being the smartest guy out there wasn't going to do the culture any good.

We're looking for an army for freedom that's going to go out and make a difference. So just being smart isn't good enough. We want you to be a cultural warrior. LPR's been around for almost 25 years. Why do you think it's more important than ever to have programs like this? I have to admit, Rick, that it has changed and evolved with my thinking a little bit. Early on, because I was more political, what I did is I thought the answer was, let's just get better politicians.

Let's just get better people that run for office. and that's good and important. But my thinking went a different direction, because politicians, by their nature, are going to be responsive to the people. And the people are the problem. If what we're doing is asking for handouts or more government, they're going to give it to us.

And the founders intended it that way. They're supposed to be representative of us. And so it occurred to me, what I needed to do was surround the policymakers with people that were, influential within their community. And so we have journalists, we have donors, we have people that are grassroots activists, we have people that have never been involved in politics, and some people that have gone on to be cabinet secretaries or congressmen or federal judges. But what is the

special part of it is, it's a network of people that all have different skill sets and different constituencies. And what that creates is kind of this drumbeat of people that understand freedom and why that's so important and know how to recognize force. Now, that's a different way of talking about politics. Most people want to say Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, and those are just tribal fighting words these days. And people immediately make an assumption and line up with their tribe. Instead, we say, do you know how to recognize freedom and understand what the founders had in mind. Do you understand the morality of capitalism and why it's the only socioeconomic system that actually integrates with the American founding? And then do you know how to

activate your fellow citizens in a way where you can essentialize these ideas in a way that's really compelling and persuades them? And it's not just a big political fight. So what we do is we focus on three things. Individual rights and the proper role of government and how to activate and engage your fellow citizens around the ideas of freedom. So everything we talk about and we say, we're not giving you the answer. We're giving you the framework or the recipe for how to recognize freedom and how to look for that and encourage that in public policy. I mean, you've said you're trying to change culture. And certainly at the Bradley Foundation, through our grantees, we're trying to do the same thing.

That requires patience. This doesn't happen in a quarter or, I mean, you must have had moments over the years wondering, am I really making a difference here? Because culture change is hard and you're never done. It is. But, you know, in a way, it's kind of like when the founders said life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The heart part is the pursuit of happiness because you're never done with that.

It's not about just finding joy and saying I'm having a good time and isn't this fun. Pursuit of happiness is about finding meaning and mission and purpose. And for me, the leadership program of the Rockies is my vehicle for figuring out my pursuit of happiness because motivating people and getting them to say, you know, you changed my life. And sometimes a person will go through the program and I think, think, oh, they dropped off the map. We'll never see them again. And then they show up 10 years later and give me their story about what they've been doing and how they've had influence. And I'm always like, this is working, but it's the long game. It's long ball. And as a former political consultant,

sometimes my impatience, because I love a deadline. There's nothing like having an election to decide, are we winning or are we losing? So how do you measure are we winning or losing the culture? Well, it's hard because if politics is your only barometer, we're losing in a lot of ways. When you have a socialist that gets elected in New York, when you see socialism spreading across the country, but I see people in their communities are saying this isn't right and they recognize something, but they don't know how to articulate it and they don't know how to necessarily spread it to their fellow neighbors. And that takes a while.

And it takes understanding profound ideas in a way deep in your your soul and motivating others to see the world the way you see it. Let's talk about some of the alumni that have gone through the program, and we've mentioned more than 2,500 have now gone through the program. Talk about some stories of the impact that you're talking about that really stand out to you. So, Rick, are you inviting me to sit here for the next two weeks and just tell stories over and over and over? Because I could. It is amazing. I have so many stories. In fact, just a couple of, hours ago, right here in Milwaukee, I went and observed one of our graduates. Now, this is a guy who

flew from Milwaukee every month to come through our leadership program, the Rockies, actually in Colorado. He went through the program. This guy's a former lawyer, and he now teaches, it's about 97% of the kids are African American and coming from lower socioeconomic households. And he said, Shari, the leadership program of the Rockies changed my perspective. I'm like, come on. You know, you kind of knew your stuff. And he said, no, it changed my perspective. He teaches a criminal law class.

And he said, I just didn't put two and two together putting the founding documents, thinking about the Bill of Rights, thinking about natural law, thinking about what equality under the law really means. And so it was really fun because I'm observing this class. And I'm watching these kids. And they are articulating the ideas of the federalist papers. And they're just debating and talking about eminent domain. Well, you know what?

Most adults don't do that. Don't get those ideas. In fact, I have a lot of lawyers that go through the program and they say, why didn't I get this in my constitutional law class? And I always say, why indeed? Because there's this idea out there. Oh, it's all about case law and precedent. that's not what the founders had in mind.

So saying it's a living document rather than it's a rulebook that reflects the beauty and the glory of the Declaration of Independence. And we're coming up on 250 years and celebrating this profound idea. And yet most adults can articulate why it's so grand, why it's so important and why it has enduring impact. Well, our graduates do. and it was fun to see someone who is really accomplished, but now teaching it to kids,

and they will have enduring impact for years and years to come. And that's our ideas. How do you have concentric circles of influence? So there's lots of our graduates that are doing things I don't even know of. So wasn't I lucky to go and watch this and see kids talking about the federalist papers? But the key is you need to get to the adults first, because the adults are the decision makers. Everybody wants to focus right on the children and the young people,

but unless they're surrounded by a good teacher or a good school board member or a first employer or a great pastor that gets these ideas, then they won't get those ideas. And we'll lose the country. And so our whole idea in thinking about all these different influencers is you want influencers with different kinds of people that they're influenced. but they're all adults. First reaction is I wish I'd gotten that in my constitutional law class and didn't. He too. I didn't get it until late in life. And now, you know, I am, what we say is we're screaming advocates for freedom.

And Milwaukee's a small town. I actually know who you're talking about. And I watched him in action before he went through the program. I wonder how he's different now that he's been through the program than before, which is really a broad. question. What kind of transformation do you see from day one to the end of nine months when they've been through the program every month pretty intensively? So, Rick, it's funny because might say at least 75% of my graduates say they changed my, you guys changed my life. Well, that sounds like a bunch of hooey. But in fact, I can see it happening and what the difference is. I asked them, you know, Okay, nine days. How did that change your life? And they always say, I knew that I love my country. I knew that I was patriotic. I knew that I thought these ideas were right, but I couldn't explain it to other people. You guys give me the formulas and essential.

Right. And when you're put on the spot, because remember, we have a lot of interactive activities, Congressman Bob Schaefer will put a microphone in front of your mouth and ask you a question that's going on, right there in the headlines of the papers. And we don't want your opinion because an opinion is just a fleeting thought. We want you to talk in principles or values. Most of the people on the right, and I'm conservative, but most of the people on the right have a tendency to talk about issues and policy rather than talking about values and principles. And what is a principle? A principle is foundational. Something that we can actually all agree on, even if we have political, you know, disagreements on how to get there. So when you learn how to talk in a principled way,

you can be much more persuasive. And so our people say, change my life. I love, I had this woman and she is a young woman with kids in Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, super liberal place, right? And she said, her husband, they would have conversations and they would literally say, close the windows. We don't want our neighbors to hear what we have to say about this. We might get canceled because we don't have the right kind of thinking. And that's being challenged more and more. But how horrible to have an adult say, shh, close the windows? Our opinion might offend people out there. So this woman went through our program and she's like a house on fire. So she started encouraging all her friends to talk about these ideas, people that even have different politics than she does.

And she got 17 people to apply for the next year's class. Then she went on and said, Shari, give me more. So we had a program called the Greater Impact Training, and she went through that to even dig deeper into these ideas of principle and to practice these persuasive skills. So what she did is after that she had to pick a project. So she picked working with a school up in Boulder, Colorado, where none of the parents agreed with her politically, but she exercised the kids in the class through some of the techniques that we teach in the leadership program of the Rockies. And she said she had parents thanking her because nobody really presented the ideas in a way that they can understand and see themselves in too.

And so she's a house on fire. She's doing incredible things. And that's changing culture in a small but very important way. Yes, yeah. Another one of my favorite stories is we have a doctor. And this doctor is really smart. He has like six clinics and he's just brilliant. And when I first approached him about going through the program, he said,

Shari, I am a man of science. I don't need anything political. And I explained to him why we're not about politics. were about principals. He went, huh, that sounds kind of interesting. And he agreed and he signed up and went through the class. He is now a screaming advocate for freedom. And he talks about it wherever he goes.

His kids get it. His doctors get it. And my favorite part of the story is he does surgeries every single day. And while they're waiting for biopsies, he'll sit there and teach all of his hospital texts about the ideas of capitalism. Why it's a moral and good system. And in fact, we don't want to be socialist. But why is capitalism good and why is capitalism good for the poor?

He's been so successful. He's had two of his hospital techs quit and decide that they wanted to go and get economics degrees. And my favorite part is when he says, Chari, I think the die under anesthesia is getting these ideas on capitalism too. Wow. Terrific. We've got to talk about your plans to expand into the Great Lakes region. We have to be in a Milwaukee-based organization.

Yes. Talk about that. What's the vision? What's going to take to be successful? Can it work without you pushing every day? It can. So part of the idea is we need to scale and replicate and get more people that are advocates of these ideas. And so we're planning on a Great Lakes Leadership program.

And to date, we've had about a dozen people from. the Wisconsin area, fly every month and come to our program in Colorado. Now, that's fun because it's kind of the mothership. And we have people from 17 states that have come in and paid on their own to go through this program. And they've been from Alaska, from Maine, from Florida, all sorts of people. But specifically, we've had a lot of people from Wisconsin and Minnesota and Michigan and Chicago area that have come through the program.

and now want their own program here in the Great Lakes region. So we've been working on this, and I've been training some people that know how to do what we do operationally. Because there's not another program like this that focuses on adults in such a profound way that really test people. So we want to replicate it rather than just being another speaker's program or another program that talks about ideology, we really want it to be the interactive program, but we know it's going to have a flavor for whatever region it's in. So we've already done this once before in Connecticut.

And I was dared to go to Connecticut because people said there's no chance you can find anybody that's any kind of conservative or wants these ideas in Connecticut. And I said, I think we can. And we did that. We did that for four years. And we found all sorts of people

that were screaming advocates. So now the idea is, How do we do that in the Great Lakes area? So we've got an advisory board that is raising money and is recruiting people. And I hope everybody that watches this video is thinking about who do I know in this area that I can refer to this program and how do I support this program? Because I want to see it go forward. But we're very much capitalist from this standpoint. We don't want to give people the money and then say, hey, this is.

a great program now come through it. So we're hoping that this is organic and that people will raise the money to support a program for now, for many years to come. And so we're building it very slowly. But in fact, we've got a lot of people that have been through the Colorado program and want to see it happen. Right now, before the program starts, people can come and go through our program, but our hope is by next fall of 2026 that we're launching the Great Lakes leadership program. That's really exciting. Really exciting. Look forward to seeing how that progresses.

Shari, we've got time for one last question. The phrase build an army for freedom really, I think, does capture your vision. We've heard that today. You know, we're at a time when many feel discouraged about the direction of this country. There's a lot of division without question. But what gives you hope? that this approach can preserve American principles for future generations. And where do you see the greatest opportunities ahead?

So I am hopeful. It would be easy to get discouraged. You know, the political pendulum goes back and forth. And we know that every day the news cycle, within one day, you'll have 15 different stories. And we're in a kind of an age of attention. How do I grab somebody's attention? Well, we're different because we're asking you to think deeper. and timeless principles, but to be a leader in action your whole life long.

And so when people start to embrace that, they find ways to plug into their community. They find ways to change the culture. And we know it works. How do we know that it works? In 1776, a small group of people that went up against the greatest superpower in the world prevailed. Why did they? They didn't have better. armies. In fact, half of our people didn't have shoes and poor, poor Washington had to say half of them

their muskets wouldn't work. But they prevailed because they had the right idea. The ideas of 1776 are what endures. That's what gives me hope that, yes, we've experienced 250 years. And in fact, there's been challenges, a lot of challenges along the way, but a small group of people, educated with the right ideas banded together with some meaningful purpose about preserving freedom, that can save the country, and I know it's going to, and I'm hopeful. Beautifully said. Shari Williams, thanks so much for spending time with us today, and thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your dedication over these decades.

You're making a difference in people's lives. You're making indifference in our country, and we appreciate it. Thank you, Rick, and thank you for everything that Bradley does to support us. I think it's a wonderful partnership, and we're going to prevail. Amen. And as always, thanks to all of you for joining us on this episode of Voices of Freedom. Join us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts for our next conversation on issues impacting our freedom and America's foundational principles.

And make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. I'm Rick Graber, and this is a Bradley Foundation. podcast.