MCRC Executive Board
Craig grew up in a very small town in western Kansas and has been a conservative Christian Republican all his life. He attended Kansas State University where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and subsequently went to work for General Motors Corporation. He resigned from a GM management position in 1987 and moved his wife and two very young sons to Gilbert Arizona and they have made Gilbert and Chandler their home for the last 35 years. Both sons, their wives and seven grandchildren all live in the Valley of the Sun.
Craig is a retired CEO of an aerospace company where he was responsible for hundreds of employees. He has many years of experience and success solving problems for large corporations like Boeing and Lockheed.
Since retirement Craig has dedicated much of his time to the public/political realm. During the past election cycle, he and his wife hosted three general Republican 2022 Primary meet and greets and several fund raisers. They also worked the polls during the primary and general election. Craig served as MCRC MAL until taking over the MCRC Chair responsibilities. Craig is a pilot and owns and operates a light jet. Besides personal travel, he uses the aircraft to transport disabled military veterans to and from special events and provides Republican candidates transportation to and from campaign events.
Please do not hesitate to contact Craig any time at chair@maricopacountygop.org
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I plan to:
Work with Chairman to create an election integrity committee that will assist MCRC in developing and implementing our own voter database to maintain local ownership. This will bring flexibility to the LDs to download needed data for their LD, work on voter roll cleanup, and proactively work on PC recruitment and GOTV drives. This committee will also keep up to date on election related activities, communicate concerns to and from our county elections department, and work on election related legislation.
Assist the Chairman in creating a legislative engagement committee composed of PCs from all LDs to actively communicate with our legislators our positions on proposed legislation and initiate and/or support good legislation. Help educate the PCs on how to be citizen lobbyists.
Advocate to create an advisory committee composed of grassroot org leaders that will help increase party reach, communications, and manpower. Create community between the grassroots activists and candidates and the MCRC.
Please do not hesitate to contact Shelby any time at shelby.B@unitedlibertycoalition.com
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| Tatiana Peña is a native Arizonan Latina Constitutional conservative, educator, musician, and mother who’s passionate about growing the Republican Party in Arizona and protecting the American Dream. Tatiana offers a diverse and new perspective that our party embraces. She lives in the same community she grew up in, South Phoenix, where many immigrants, latino, black, and other minority groups heavily populate. She is passionate about helping reach out and involve citizens so they can help make an effective impact on their government and elected officials. Tatiana is well educated with both a bachelor’s in education and a Master’s in Public Administration. She is trilingual- English, Spanish, and German. She is a happily married full-time mom of 5 girls and a part time advocate for a local non-profit in helping families connect to all their School Choice options. She also works alongside many pro-life groups and crisis pregnancy centers. She regularly also participates in helping organize community service projects. She has been a precinct committeeman since 2017, has served previously as a Legislative District 3rd Vice Chair,, has been a State Committeeman since 2018, just finished serving as AZ GOP Member-At Large, and has run for State Representative both in 2020 and 2022. She has walked miles through neighborhoods, knocked over 20,000 doors, recruited many precinct committeemen, recruited candidates to run, volunteered in multiple campaigns, helped bring Hispanic Outreach Centers to South Phoenix, registered many voters, has been a Spanish speaking spokeswoman for Republicans, has participated and organized several community events, signature gathered, organized electioneering efforts at polling locations, recruited poll workers/observers, and more! Please contact Tatiana at any time at Tatitat311@gmail.com |
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| In 2020 we learned that a strategy of winning votes loses to a strategy of collecting ballots. That should cause us to rethink our strategy, but that hasn’t happened yet.
I have been a PC only since 2018. Since 2020, I have mostly worked with Liz Harris’ team of volunteers. My relative inexperience at party affairs is a good thing. The Republican party has mostly opposed our work in election integrity. They have denied us data that is ours by statute. They have tried to tell us voters don’t care about election integrity and that we will lose elections if we talk about it. They are now telling us that we lost the 2022 elections because we nominated candidates who fought for election integrity. Most of the PCs who have volunteered since 2020 just want to save their country. Being new permits us to see more clearly the dire state we are in. I pledge to use my vote on the executive committee to put our party clearly on the side of election integrity. We must pressure our lawmakers. We must be able to clearly see their defects. Once we stand for principle and not for process, we should find it easier to raise money — so that we may be more independent of the national party –, and we should find it easier to recruit and retain PCs. Please do not hesitate to contact Lawrence any time at lawrence_m_hudson@yahoo.com |
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| Secretary Daniel Grimm – CONTACT DAN Dan, an Electrical Engineer with 30+ years of experience in the Valley’s Semiconductor manufacturing arena is a proud graduate of Penn State University, whereupon graduation, he moved to Arizona. He raised his family in Mesa, Arizona (2 sons and a daughter) and currently resides in Tempe, Optimist Precinct of LD12. Dan co-founded the grassroots organization VoCaL (Valley Conservative League) in 2004 with a small band of deplorables, presaging the rise of the Tea Party in Arizona! Dissatisfied with results achieved on the outside, Dan became a Precinct Committeeman to try to incite change from within the Republican Party. Dan served on the Executive Board of LD19 (LD25) from 2007 – 2010 and as an MCRC Member-at-Large from 2008 – 2011. Dan planned and organized the Statutory and Mandatory Meetings from 2012 – 2015. (just look for the guy with the BIG Green Hat!) Dan received the MCRC Reagan Volunteer Award, as well as the Lincoln Lifetime Achievement award. In 2015, Dan received the AZ GOP Goldwater Volunteer of the Year Award. Dan served on the Executive Board of the East Valley Tea Party from 2013 – 2016. Dan strives to emulate Ronald Reagan’s maxim, “There’s no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” |
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| Joe Neglia is a Constitutional Conservative and is dedicated to upholding and defending the principles upon which our republic and our party were founded. An active Republican Precinct Committeeman and State Committeeman since 2012, he serves in a variety of roles in the party, and is a Life Member of the NRA and the Arizona Citizen’s Defense League. His political activity began in 1980 when he stuffed envelopes for the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign. He is also a professional registered parliamentarian and is president of the Arizona Alpha Unit of the National Association of Parliamentarians. Joe teaches Engineering Technology at Mesa Community College and is a registered Professional Engineer. His experience includes consulting for the National Science foundation, Intel Corporation, Sperry Space Systems, and Honeywell Satellite Systems. Joe holds two U.S. Patents for his work on the Strategic Defense Initiative, a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Arizona State University. A resident of Maricopa County since 1986, Joe lives in Tempe with his beautiful wife of 27 years and two lovely daughters. CONTACT JOE |
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Brian Ference is a native-born Arizonan and a life-long Republican. He is a pro-life Christian and a Constitutional Conservative. He believes strongly in election integrity, smaller government, less taxes, securing our border, and stopping illegal immigration. He opposes anything socialist or communist, will fight for our freedoms, and strongly supports everything in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Brian has an M.B.A. and is an experienced Technical Project Manager and Web Design expert.
Brian has achieved his goal as MAL to help the LDs rebuild their communications and web/social sites after their boards are dissolved and reformed as part of redistricting. He is now focused on helping LDs on winning the 2024 election. – CONTACT BRIAN or brianference.com
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Joanie is a Christian Conservative who believes the US Constitution is, and always has been, the bedrock of our Repubic and strongly believes the grassroots efforts of Patriots will make our country great again.
As a member at large her goal is to work to vet candidates at all levels of elected positions from precinct committeeman to the governor’s office. She is hoping to work with the MCRC as well as the LD chairs to find strong conservative candidates to fill existing and new positions as we reorganize out of redistricting. She is also focused on improving communication among the MCRC and the LDs as we move forward.
A quote that keeps her motivated is from President Reagan as he said ‘freedom is only a generation from extinction’. Together we can fight to keep that freedom. – CONTACT JOANIE
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Liz Harris is a constitutional conservative. Currently, she resides with her family in Chandler, AZ and she has three children. After spending the first part of her life in a predominantly liberal urban area, Liz knew there was a different way of living. In her early adulthood, Liz had to break away from the political ideologies that were ingrained in her by the East Coast educational systems (K-12, undergraduate and graduate schools). Relocating to Chandler, AZ in 1999 was one of the best decisions Liz had ever made. She came here not knowing a single person except her new future employer who happened to be a Republican state legislator at the time. Arizona was her new home and each day it became apparent to her that the reason Arizona was so great was thanks to Republican leadership and sound Republican policies. Throughout 2021, Liz Harris and hundreds of concerned citizens led a state-wide canvassing effort and discovered a vast amount of questions to be asked regarding the November 2020 election. Liz wishes to see the Great State of Arizona to remain the state that the rest of the country envies. – CONTACT LIZ