Mark Anthony Carter, Chairman

Mr. Carter will serve the remainder of a five-year term expiring January 10, 2022.  He previously served as a Member of the Panel from 2002 through 2009, upon three successive appointments by President George W. Bush.  He is currently a Partner at Dinsmore’s Charleston, West Virginia office, where he is the firm’s Labor Practice Group Chair.  He has a national practice focused on advising employers on all aspects of relationships with labor unions.  Mr. Carter has advised and represented employers throughout the United States in corporate campaigns, collective bargaining, arbitrations, and federal litigation involving labor unions, as well as serving employers in employment litigation.  He has litigated in Alaska, New Jersey, Idaho, Michigan, Alabama, and other states, and he has advised clients in Washington state, Puerto Rico, California, New York, Florida, the District of Columbia, and the majority of the states in the nation.  Mr. Carter has testified before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.  He is a former Management Chair of the Antitrust, RICO, and Labor Law Committees of the American Bar Association, and he has spoken at over 10 annual meetings of that organization.  He has also spoken for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Association of Counsel to Employers, the Labor Policy Association, and other national trade groups.  Mr. Carter has published numerous articles and portions of treatises on labor law.  He received a B.A. with high distinction from the University of Michigan, where he was a Burnett Scholar, and a J.D. from West Virginia College of Law in 1986. 

Karen M. Czarnecki, Member

Ms. Czarnecki will serve a five-year term expiring January 10, 2025.  She previously served as a Member of the Panel from July 27, 2017 through January 10, 2020.  Ms. Czarnecki is the Vice President of Outreach for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.  She previously served as the Director of Education at the Law & Economics Center (LEC) at George Mason University School of Law, where she oversaw three divisions responsible for legal education programs for federal and state court judges, state attorneys general, and Congressional staff.  Prior to her work at the LEC, she was a Congressional Chief of Staff and a communications advisor.  From 2001 to 2009, Ms. Czarnecki was a senior executive at the U.S. Department of Labor where she served as Director of the Office of the 21st Century Workforce, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs, and Acting Assistant Secretary in the Office of Disability Employment Policy.  Earlier in her career, Ms. Czarnecki worked at the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Heritage Foundation, and in the White House’s Office of the Vice President.  She is currently an adjunct professor at George Mason University, where she teaches a public policy seminar as part of the Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems for The Fund for American Studies.  She is also a member and former co-chair of the Board of Regents for The Fund for American Studies.  Ms. Czarnecki earned her B.A. and J.D. from The Catholic University of America.

Robert J. Gilson, Member

Robert J. Gilson will serve a five-year term expiring October 2, 2024. Mr. Gilson began his federal career with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and has held labor and employee relations, managerial, and agency advocacy positions with the Office of Personnel Management, the Navy, the Army, the Department of Treasury, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), where he served as Chief of Labor and Employee Relations. He is proud of his role in helping to establish the NTSB Training Academy, located on the Loudoun County, Virginia Campus of the George Washington University. During his federal career, Mr. Gilson served as chief negotiator on numerous labor agreements and represented agencies before the FLRA, the Panel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and arbitrators. Since retiring from federal service in 2001, Mr. Gilson continued to represent federal agencies before the FLRA, the Panel, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. In recent years, he developed and delivered a number of advanced Labor and Employee Relations training courses, and has spoken at many conferences on labor and employee relations issues. He has trained thousands of federal negotiators, supervisors, and managers over the course of more than 40 years. Mr. Gilson is the author or co-author of nine books for federal managers. Since 2004, he has also written more than 500 articles about labor and employee relations issues for FedSmith.com, a news website devoted to federal sector employment issues. Mr. Gilson holds a bachelor’s degree from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Michael Lucci, Member

Michael Lucci will serve a five-year term on the Panel. He is currently a labor, tax, and economic policy expert working with an array of state and national policy organizations. Previously, Mr. Lucci served as Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy from 2017-2019. He led Governor Rauner’s policy team and advised the Governor on more than 1,000 bill actions. Prior to that appointment, he was Vice President of Policy at the Illinois Policy Institute where he focused on labor and economic reforms.  Mr. Lucci’s career has involved work in finance, as an options trader, and education, as a math instructor. He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame where he was a varsity oarsman on the crew team and he later completed self-directed coursework in economics at the University of Chicago and at Northwestern University. Mr. Lucci lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Maxford Nelsen, Member

Maxford Nelsen will serve a five-year term expiring October 2, 2024. Mr. Nelsen is the director of labor policy for the Freedom Foundation, where he leads the organization’s research, advises its strategic litigation program, and advances its government affairs efforts. His research on labor and economic policy has formed the basis of several briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Nelsen’s work has been published in local newspapers around the country as well as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, and the National Review. His commentary on labor policy issues has been featured in media outlets like the New York Times, Fox News, and the PBS News Hour. Prior to joining the Freedom Foundation, Mr. Nelsen worked for WashingtonVotes.org and the Washington Policy Center. He graduated magna cum laude from Whitworth University with a bachelor’s degree in political science. Mr. Nelsen resides in Olympia, Washington, with his wife and son.

Andrea Fischer Newman, Member

Ms. Newman will also serve the remainder of a five-year term expiring January 10, 2022.  She previously served as a Member of the Panel from 2002 to 2009, appointed by President George W. Bush.  She has served as Senior Vice President – Government Affairs for Delta Air Lines since 2008.  From 2001 to 2008, she was Senior Vice President – Government Affairs for Northwest Airlines.  Ms. Newman joined Northwest in 1995.  Before her airline career, she was a Senior Counsel and Senior Partner at Miller, Canfield, Paddock, and Stone.  In addition to serving on the Panel, Ms. Newman’s public service includes serving in President Ronald Reagan’s Administration as Special Counsel to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Logistics and Deputy Assistant to Vice President George H. W. Bush.  She has been appointed to the Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity and the National Board for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education.  Ms. Newman was elected to the University of Michigan Board of Regents in 1994 and re-elected in 2002 and 2010, for a term that expires on January 1, 2019.  She received an A.B. degree with honors from the University of Michigan in 1979 and a J.D. degree from the George Washington University National Law Center in 1983.

David R. Osborne, Member

Mr. Osborne will serve a five-year term expiring January 10, 2025. He previously served as a Member of the Panel from July 27, 2017 through January 10, 2020. Mr. Osborne is Chief Executive Officer of Americans for Fair Treatment, a community of current and former public-sector workers offering resources and support to exercise their First Amendment rights, and Of Counsel to Goldstein Law Partners, LLC. He received his J.D. degree from the Florida State University College of Law, graduating magna cum laude, and, shortly after law school, served as a judicial clerk to a Florida Supreme Court justice. He enrolled in law school after working as official staff for a Member of Congress from Orlando, Florida. Mr. Osborne is a member of the Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Florida state bars, and he has been admitted to the United States Supreme Court, Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and various federal district courts. He is based in Jacksonville, Florida.  

Jonathan Riches, Member

Mr. Riches will serve the remainder of a five-year term expiring January 10, 2024.  He is the Director of National Litigation for the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation and General Counsel for the Institute.  He litigates in federal and state trial and appellate courts in the areas of economic liberty, taxpayer rights, government transparency, free speech, and educational choice, among others.  Before joining the Goldwater Institute, Mr. Riches served on active duty in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps.  He previously clerked for Senator Jon Kyl (R- AZ) on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, worked for the Rules Committee in the Arizona State Senate, and clerked in the Office of Counsel to the President at the White House.  He received his B.A. from Boston College, where he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and earned his J.D. from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law. 

F. Vincent Vernuccio, Member

Mr. Vernuccio will  serve the remainder of a five-year term expiring January 10, 2024.  He is a labor policy consultant and serves as a senior policy advisor for the State Policy Network, a senior fellow at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and a senior fellow at the Illinois Policy Institute.  Under President George W. Bush, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management at the U.S. Department of Labor from 2008-2009.  He also served on the Trump transition team for the Department of Labor.  Mr. Vernuccio has published articles and op-eds in such newspapers and magazines as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Investor’s Business Daily, The Washington Times, National Review, Forbes, and The American Spectator.  He is a sought-after voice on labor panels nationally and in Washington, D.C., and as a guest on national television.  Mr. Vernuccio has advised legislators on a multitude of labor‑related issues, and he has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and Labor Policy.  Mr. Vernuccio lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and he is a graduate of the Ave Maria School of Law.

Patrick Wright, Member

Mr. Wright will serve the remainder of a five-year term expiring January 10, 2024.  He is Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, where he directs the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation. He joined the Center in 2005 after serving for three years as a Michigan Supreme Court commissioner, a post in which he made recommendations to the court concerning which state appeals court cases it should hear. Prior to that, he spent four years as an assistant attorney general for the State of Michigan, where he gained significant litigation and appellate advocacy experience. Mr. Wright joined the state Attorney General’s Office after serving as a policy advisor in the Senate Majority Policy Office of the Michigan Senate. He also spent two years as a law clerk to the Honorable H. Russell Holland, a United States district court judge in Alaska. Aside from directly representing clients, Mr. Wright has filed numerous amicus briefs, including many to the United States Supreme Court. In addition to being featured in many state publications and on national media outlets, his work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Hill. Mr. Wright received his law degree, with honors, from George Washington University in 1994. He received his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Michigan in 1990. Mr. Wright lives in Midland, Michigan, with his wife and sons.