VICE PRESIDENT, CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS, CHARLOTTE PIPE AND FOUNDRY COMPANY
Brad is a marketing and communications strategist with more than thirty-five years of experience in public and corporate affairs, international and government relations, manufacturing and business marketing, crisis management and media training.
Brad spent nearly a decade in Washington, DC, including stints with the U.S. State Department and Edelman Worldwide, the largest public relations and public affairs agency in the world.
Currently, Brad leads corporate communications and government affairs for Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company, a fifth-generation, family-owned manufacturer based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded in 1901, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry is the leading U.S. producer of cast iron and plastic pipe and fittings for plumbing systems.
Brad began his career working for the U.S. State Department’s Agency for International Development (USAID) in the George H.W. Bush Administration as a desk officer, managing foreign aid programs for Afghanistan and later for Central and Eastern Europe after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
At Edelman, Brad put his foreign policy experience to work for the late Michael Deaver, former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Ronald Reagan, on a variety of public affairs, international relations, and trade issues.
Brad has been active within his industry and community, including:
▪ Leadership roles with the American Foundry Society, the Cast Iron Soil Pipe Institute, the Municipal Casting Association, and the U.S. Trade Advisory Committee for Steel and Iron.
▪ Appearing as a manufacturing subject matter expert before U.S. House of Representatives committees and the U.S. Small Business Administration.
▪ Service on boards of the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Foundation, among others.
Brad earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio in 1988. Brad and his wife Charla, an experienced senior marketing executive and published author, have two grown children.
De minimis, a customs rule that allows for duty free shipment and minimal inspection if the overseas vendor claims the value is under $800, is a haven for contraband, whether it’s fake Nikes, childrens’ toys made of lead, or banned food products, Customs and Border Protect (CBP) admitted yet again.
Keynes believed that free trade could exacerbate domestic unemployment and economic imbalances and argues for the use of tariffs and trade protections to safeguard national industries, preserve employment, and promote the balance of trade.
Tariffs are becoming widely accepted by U.S. politicians and policymakers as an important tool for maintaining and rebuilding our industrial economy. But quotas, a related tool, can sometimes work better to restrain imports and encourage growth in domestic production, investment and jobs.
When George Washington was President, consensus existed that tariffs should be used for both (1) federal revenue purposes, and also (2) to protect domestic production. This consensus was embodied in the first sentence of the first U.S. Tariff Act, passed on July 4, 1789.
