Who We Are
Our Founders
Max Baucus
Max Baucus is a former United States Senator and Ambassador to China, active today in business, public policy, and international affairs. In his years as an elected official and diplomat he was engaged in the most consequential issues of the past half-century, and continues to provide counsel as co-founder of the Baucus Group. He is a native of Montana—the state where he was raised in a ranching family, appeared on the ballot nine times, and never lost an election.
Melodee Hanes
Melodee Hanes is an attorney with a 30+ year career in public service, which includes work as a prosecuting attorney in Iowa and Montana. She was appointed in 2008 by President Obama to the U.S. Department of Justice as the Acting Director of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and then as Acting Director of Communications for the Office of Justice Programs. From 2014 to 2017, she resided in China with her husband, Ambassador Baucus, and worked as an attorney consultant on issues of family violence and juvenile justice, helping to implement China's first-ever Domestic Violence law.
Andrew Person
Executive Director
Andrew was born and raised in Helena, MT. After earning a B.A. in Political Science from Gonzaga University, he served five years as a U.S. Army officer, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He later earned a Master’s in Foreign Service from Georgetown and spent five years as a policy aide to Senator Max Baucus. Andrew received his J.D. from the University of Montana in 2014 and practiced law until becoming Executive Director of the Baucus Institute in 2023. He is passionate about helping Montana students lead at home and around the world.
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Mel Brittner Wells
Deputy Director
Mel Brittner Wells has over fifteen years of nonprofit experience and describes herself as a Swiss Army knife of skills. With a master’s degree in book publishing, she began her career at Literary Arts in Portland, Oregon. She and her wife moved to western Montana in 2018 to return to the area they both grew up in. Her work favorites include well-formatted spreadsheets, collaborative growth, and a good story.
Hutcheson Warwick
DC Program Coordinator (contractor)
A California native, Hutcheson earned her B.A. in History and double minor in political science and gender studies from the University of Montana before pursuing her M.Ed. and teaching license at the University of Oregon. Based in Washington, D.C., Hutcheson serves as the Baucus Leaders' DC Program Coordinator in addition to her full-time job working for Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service Career Center. She is passionate about work “in service of others," and loves to bike, travel, and paint.
Brendan Campbell
Project Lead (contractor)
Brendan Campbell was born and raised in Missoula, MT, where he graduated from Hellgate High School. After earning a B.S. in Cognitive Science from Yale University, Brendan returned to Montana, where he worked in campaign strategy, agricultural policy, whitewater rafting, and documentary film. He then moved to Beijing, China as a Schwarzman Scholar, where in 2025 he earned his M.A. in Global Affairs at Tsinghua University. His research there focused on diplomatic relations between the rural US and rural China. Now based back in Missoula, Brendan works for the Baucus Institute as Project Lead on a grant focused on Montana's energy development. When he's not working on Baucus Institute-related projects or US-China diplomacy, he continues to work in documentary film. You can also find him DJing, backpacking, or practicing his banjo most weekends
Max Baucus
Board Co-Chair
Max Baucus is a former United States senator and ambassador to China, active today in business, public policy, and international affairs. In his years as an elected official and diplomat he was engaged in the most consequential issues of the past half-century, and continues to provide counsel as co-founder of the Baucus Group. He is a native of Montana—the state where he was raised in a ranching family, appeared on the ballot nine times, and never lost an election.
Melodee Hanes
Board Co-Chair
Melodee Hanes is an attorney with a 30+ year career in public service, which includes work as a prosecuting attorney in Iowa and Montana. She was appointed in 2008 by President Obama to the U.S. Department of Justice as the Acting Director of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and then as Acting Director of Communications for the Office of Justice Programs. From 2014 to 2017, she resided in China with her husband, Ambassador Baucus, and worked as an attorney consultant on issues of family violence and juvenile justice, helping to implement China's first-ever Domestic Violence law.
Jim McCray
Director
Jim McCray has extensive experience and knowledge in national fundraising and development. McCray is a Managing Partner at Highwood Capital – a national political, business, and 501(c)(4) nonprofit consulting firm headquartered in Washington D.C. Through his consulting work, McCray has worked with significant nonprofits and advised numerous U.S. Senators, Governors, presidential campaigns, national coalitions, and corporations in the business and political arenas. Originally from a cattle ranch in Geyser, Montana, McCray attended Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana.
Barb Skelton
Director
Barb Skelton is a fifth-generation Montanan who owns and operates the cattle ranch at Stanford that has been in the family since 1887. Along with her love of agriculture she has owned and shown horses most of her life, winning World Championships as well as many grand champions over the years. Barb and her late husband Paul Gatzemeier owned Intermountain Equestrian Center where they founded Horses Spirits Healing, a nonprofit proving equine therapy for those with disabilities seen and unseen, focusing on Veterans and their families. She believes in community service, having served on over fifty boards and commissions over the past fifty years. She is President of the Coal Black Cattle Company and Consulting Services focusing on energy and agriculture issues.
Barrett Kaiser
Director
Our Team
Shihua Brazill
Dr. Shihua Brazill is an Assistant Professor of Communications in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Montana Tech and a 2025 Montana University System Teaching Scholar. She holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education and a graduate certificate in College Teaching, with over 16 years of experience in higher education and faculty development. Her teaching and scholarship focus on intercultural and interpersonal communication, artificial intelligence, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Universal Design for Learning, and inclusive pedagogy.
Sara Callow
Sara Callow (she/her) is the Pre-Law Advisor at Montana State University and a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and College of Letters and Sciences. She works with all students interested in exploring careers related to the legal profession and has been working in higher education for the last 20 years. Sara is on the executive board for the Western Association of Pre-Law Advisors (WAPLA) and has earned micro-credentials in Advising First Generation Students and Career Advising from NACADA (The Global Community for Academic Advising) and COE (the Council for Opportunity in Education). Originally from Great Falls, Sara received her B.S. in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina and her M.A. in Political Science from San Francisco State University.
Charlie Cromwell
Charlie Cromwell is an Instructor at Montana State University's Jake Jabs College of Business & Entrepreneurship. Born and raised in Missoula, Montana, he is also currently a Managing Partner at Cromwell Law in Bozeman, Montana. Charlie is a firm believer in service. His extensive knowledge surrounding purchasing, selling, or starting a business; serving as valuable outside counsel for active businesses; and developing data and app privacy policies allows him to set each client up for success. Whether he assists an entrepreneur in starting and growing their dream, advises a fellow veteran on a business transaction, or forms an intricate estate plan, Charlie excels at navigating dynamic situations.
Lauren McKeague
Lauren K. McKeague, Ph.D., M.P.A. is an assistant professor in the School of Public and Community Health Sciences at the University of Montana. Her research explores how networks and interorganizational collaboration arrangements can be intentionally structured to strengthen disaster resilience and system adaptability. Bridging the fields of public administration, public health, and disaster management, her work draws on interdisciplinary methods to understand and improve how communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from complex disasters. Before she joined academia, she worked for the state of Florida in various capacities, including emergency management coordination and drug control policy, as well as in nonprofit administration. She holds degrees from the University of Florida, Florida State University, and Virginia Tech.
​Kira Minehart
Kira Minehart, Ph.D., is an environmental scientist whose research explores how outdoor recreation and climate change interact to shape ecosystems. She uses data-driven methods to inform land management and brings this work into the classroom through student-centered, place-based teaching. Kira holds a Ph.D. from Oregon State University and degrees in Earth Systems Science from Stanford University.
Paul Lachapelle
Paul Lachapelle is a Professor of Political Science at Montana State University, specializing in community development, climate change resiliency, and social justice. His interdisciplinary research and teaching focus on civic engagement, equity, and local governance. He is the editor of multiple academic volumes, including Addressing Climate Change at the Community Level and Community Capacity and Resilience in Latin America, and serves as Editor of the Community Development Society Book Series. He holds a Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Montana, with an emphasis on natural resource policy and governance.
Soazig Lebihan
Soazig Lebihan is a a Professor of Philosophy, the Co-director of the University of Montana's Master's Program in Environmental Philosophy, and the Director of the Pre-Law Program at UM. She is an Agrégée in Philosophy and a former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure.