About Our Board of Directors

Arch T. Allen is a partner with the Raleigh law firm Allen & Moore, L.L.P., where he practices general civil and business law. From 1991 to 1995, he served as vice chancellor for development and university relations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees from 1989 to 1991. Allen received his bachelor of science degree and his Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Virginia Foxx was elected to Congress in 2004 from North Carolina’s fifth congressional district. She previously spent ten years in the North Carolina Senate. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she received her A.B. degree in English and her M.A.C.T. in sociology. She has an Ed. D. in curriculum and teaching/higher education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Foxx taught at Caldwell Community College and was a sociology instructor at Appalachian State University, where she also held several administrative positions. Foxx served as deputy secretary for management in the North Carolina Department of Administration during the governorship of Jim Martin. Prior to her election to the North Carolina Senate, she served as president and later as consultant at Mayland Community College.

John M. Hood is president and chairman of the John Locke Foundation, an independent, nonprofit think tank that works to improve public policy in North Carolina. Hood is a syndicated columnist on state politics and public policy for the High Point Enterprise, the Durham Herald-Sun, and newspapers in more than 30 other North Carolina communities. He is a regular radio commentator and a weekly panelist on the statewide television program N.C. Spin. Hood also hosts Carolina Journal Radio, an hour-long newsmagazine that appears on 16 commercial stations each weekend. Hood is a graduate of the School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a native of Mecklenburg County and currently resides in southern Wake County with his sons, Alex and Andrew.

Tim Moore represents Cleveland County in the North Carolina House of Representatives, where he is serving his second term. He is chairman of the Election Law and Campaign Finance Reform Committee and a vice chairman of the Judiciary II Committee. Moore is an attorney in Shelby, North Carolina. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Juris Doctor degree from Oklahoma University School of Law.

J. Arthur Pope is president of Variety Wholesalers Inc., which operates a chain of over 500 retail stores in fourteen southern states. He is also president of the John William Pope Foundation, a private grant-making foundation. He served four terms in the North Carolina House of Representatives and was special counsel to Governor James Martin. He was a member of the state’s Economic Futures Study Commission and State Goals and Policies Board. He was the founding chairman of the John Locke Foundation and has served on the boards of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Jesse Helms Center at Wingate College, and the Boy Scouts of America–Occoneechee Council. Pope, a Raleigh native, graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a J.D. from Duke University School of Law.

John W. (Jack) Sommer, Ph.D., is president of the Political Economy Research Institute of Charlotte and Knight Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he serves on the boards of directors of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and the Charlotte Area Science Network. His public service includes being senior advisor for science and technology for the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Sommer received his A.M. and Ph.D. in geography and African studies from Boston University and his A.B. in geography from Dartmouth College. He lives in Cornelius, North Carolina.