Patriot Voices was founded by Rick and Karen Santorum and provides a way to amplify the voice of one with a million others. Our mission is clear: we must fight to protect faith, freedom, family and opportunity; and the fight for these bedrock principles is just as important today as it was when our country was first founded. Learn more about the people behind Patriot Voices:
Rick Santorum, Co-Founder
A native of Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2012 and became known as a voice for conservatives who didn’t feel their voice was being represented. He and his wife Karen launched Patriot Voices in June of 2012 as a grassroots and online community of Americans committed to promoting faith, family, freedom and opportunity. Read Rick's full biography here.
Follow Rick on Twitter: @ricksantorum
Karen Santorum, Co-Founder
Karen Santorum, mother of 7 and a former neonatal nurse and attorney, joined her husband Rick in founding Patriot Voices to give conservatives a place to share their voice and affect change on the issues they care most about. Read Karen's full biography here.
Follow Karen on Twitter: @karensantorum
Nadine Maenza, Executive Director
Nadine serves as the Executive Director of Patriot Voices, which requires overseeing a lot of moving parts to ensure Patriot Voices can effectively advocate for issues that further faith, family, freedom and opportunity in this country. While she most recently served as the National Finance Director for Rick Santorum for President, Nadine has worked with Senator Santorum in different capacities since he was considering his first run for the U.S. Senate in 1993. Nadine originally came to politics as a grassroots coordinator for senate races in Oregon and Arkansas. She worked on Capitol Hill for Senator John Heinz and later as his controller and the Finance Director of his campaign committee. She has also served as the Finance Director for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, and has consulted for the Republican National Committee and Mitt Romney for President in 2008. She has also worked in missions, helped run a homeschooling co-op, and is very involved in her church community. Nadine lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania with her husband Terry and three children.
Follow Nadine on Twitter: @nadinemaenza
Shelley Ahlersmeyer, National Grassroots Director
As National Grassroots Director, Shelley helps members connect and activate both online and on the ground, with a special focus on building strong communities using social networking. Shelley served as National Grassroots Coordinator for Rick Santorum for President and also as a National Grassroots Coordinator for Huck PAC. She and her husband David have five children and live in a small town in northern Indiana.
Follow Shelley on Twitter: @sahlersmeyer
Nancy Garver, Scheduler
Nancy is proud to serve Patriot Voices as Senator Santorum’s scheduler. She began working with Senator Santorum in January of 1990 as his scheduler for his first U.S. House race and continued during his two terms in the House and 12 years in the U.S. Senate. Nancy has spent the last two years working as a scheduler for the Rick Santorum for President campaign. Nancy attended the University of Missouri, Villanova University and has a B.A. from Temple University. She has been married to Dr. Bill Garver for 28 years. They have 3 children Billy, Matt & Olivia.
Virginia Davis, Communications Director
Virginia Davis serves as communications director for Patriot Voices, where she serves as a liaison to the news media. She has worked with Rick Santorum in various capacities since 1999 where she had her first internship in his office on Capitol Hill. Virginia served as Senator Santorum’s press secretary during his 2006 Senate race, and worked with him when he was a columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer and a contributor to Fox News Channel. A mother of three, Virginia and her husband Brett live in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Follow Virginia on Twitter: @virginiadavis05
Melissa Anderson, Senior Advisor
Melissa has worked for Rick Santorum since 2002 in a wide array of roles, first as a Communications Advisor for the Senate Republican Conference, and later as an aide at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Before serving on Capitol Hill, Melissa was a reporter for The Hill newspaper and an editorial associate for National Review magazine where she assisted the Washington bureau editor and wrote frequently on national politics, culture, and the arts. She spent her early years in Washington working for the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies. She and her husband Doug live in Washington, D.C. with their three sons.
Randall J. Brandt, Policy Director
During the 2012 Republican primary campaign, Randy served as the Policy Director for Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign, where he provided strategic advice on policy and political matters as part of the senior leadership team. In 2010 and 2011, he was the Program and Policy Director for the Program to Promote and Protect America’s Freedom at the Ethics and Public Policy Center after serving for 13 years in the federal government. He also served as a Senior Fellow for Convergence, a non-profit focused on consensus building efforts to find solutions to public policy challenges and has mediated more than 200 cases in the court system.
Randy served as a Senior Advisor to the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the U.S. State Department from 2007 to 2009. He was a Senate leadership staffer serving as Deputy Staff Director and Counsel for the U.S. Senate Republican Conference in 2005 and 2006. From 1996 to 2005, he worked in the offices of Sen. Rick Santorum, Rep. Phil English and Rep. Mark Souder. Randy is married to Gretchen Leaman Brandt, M.D., and has two children, Caleb and Timothy.
Tooshar Swain, Deputy Policy Director
Tooshar began working for Rick Santorum in 2003, serving as a staffer on Capitol Hill focusing on issues such as welfare reform, charitable giving, and tax policy. He most recently served Senator Santorum as the Deputy Policy Director for his presidential campaign. Between his stints with Senator Santorum, Tooshar worked for the Biotechnology Industry Organization in their Emerging Companies Section focusing on tax and financial services policy. Tooshar and his wife live in Alexandria, VA with their daughter.
Jennifer Morano, Administrative Assistant
Jennifer Frank Morano grew up in Devon, PA and graduated from Franciscan University in Ohio. She was a second grade teacher in Gallup, New Mexico before joining Senator Santorum's staff in 1996. Morano moved to the Senate Republican Conference (SRC) in 2001, when Senator Santorum became chairman. She met her husband Marc through the Santorums. She enjoyed ten years as a stay-at-home mom to her four children before joining Senator Santorum's presidential campaign in 2012. She currently serves as Karen Santorum's administrative assistant at Patriot Voices.
