The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, New Hampshire’s free-market think tank, today announced the election of Richard Ashooh as Chairman of its Board of Directors. Ashooh has served on the Center’s Board since 2010, and succeeds Manchester attorney Eugene Van Loan, who remains on the Board himself.

Ashooh takes over an organization known for its in-depth study of New Hampshire public policy issues, ranging from the state budget, public pensions, energy, education, and transparency. The Center’s newest initiative, NHOpenGov.org, publishes all of the state’s expenditures in a searchable and sortable online database.

“The Josiah Bartlett Center exists in order to help New Hampshire citizens better know and understand their state government,” said outgoing Chairman Eugene Van Loan. “Rich Ashooh brings unmatched experience and insight in the public and private sectors to help us better fulfill that mission.”

Ashooh is Vice-President at BAE Systems, and has served as a legislative aide to New Hampshire Senators Warren Rudman and Gordon Humphrey. In 2010, he was a Republican candidate for Congress in New Hampshire’s First District. He and his wife Lori are raising five children in Bedford, NH.

“I’m honored to have the opportunity to guide the Josiah Bartlett Center as we begin our next chapter,” Ashooh added. “With so many complex and important public policy questions facing us as a state and as a country, we will continue to demand transparency and accountability from our government.”

Former Chairman of the Josiah Bartlett Center Walter Peterson was one of the great treasures of the state of New Hampshire. A former governor and university president, he was known to everyone simply as Walter and no one remembers him as anything other than a warm and wonderful man.

He served the state as an elected official including Speaker of the House and Governor but also as a university president and on a myriad of boards and commissions. Most of the state benefited from his wise counsel and generous spirit.

We are blessed to have benefited from his counsel and his friendship. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Dorothy and his family.

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