Wednesday – Joint Lunch

INDIANA GOVERNOR MIKE BRAUN

Mike Braun is the 52nd Governor of Indiana and a conservative outsider who spent his career as a main street entrepreneur building a business and creating thousands of good-paying Hoosier jobs before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018. Mike has lived the American dream and as Governor of Indiana, he will work to preserve the same freedom and opportunity to achieve prosperity for future generations of Hoosiers.

After graduating from Jasper High School in 1972 as class president and a letterman in football, basketball, and track, he attended Wabash College. At Wabash, Mike graduated summa cum laude with a degree in economics and as student body president.

After college, Mike married Maureen, his high school sweetheart, and the two moved to Boston where he attended Harvard Business School and earned his MBA. After business school, while the majority of Mike’s classmates took high-paying jobs on Wall Street, he chose to move back to Jasper to raise a family and build a career.

After a few years working for a national kitchen cabinet company in Jasper, in 1981, Mike got the entrepreneurial itch and took over a struggling farm equipment manufacturer called Meyer Body. Over the next 20 years, Mike lived the hardscrabble existence of a small business owner with 15 employees and his office in a used mobile home.

In the early 2000s, Meyer began to grow into a regional company and over the next 15 years grew into a national company that currently employs thousands of Americans with locations in 38 states. During his time growing a national company and serving in the US Senate, Mike never lost track of the lessons learned as a small business owner and has always kept the same main street values.

The values of faith, family, and community guided Mike while growing a business and raising a family and have inspired his call to serve fellow Hoosiers throughout the years. Mike began his public service as a member of the local School Board for ten years and then as a State Representative from 2014-2017.

Mike has been a conservative voice for Hoosiers since his historic victory in the 2018 US Senate election, having led over 40 bills into law and was named the most effective first-term Republican Senator. Mike has also consistently been ranked as one of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, earning endorsements from Americans for Prosperity and CPAC, and maintains excellent ratings from the NRA, Family Research Council, National Right to Life, and Susan B. Anthony List.

Mike is an avid outdoorsman and enthusiastic morel mushroom hunter every spring. Mike and Maureen have been married for 48 years and have four adult children and seven grandchildren.

Wednesday Evening

JIMMIE MCMILLIAN 

Senior Corporate Counsel and Chief Diversity OfficerPenske Entertainment Corp.

Jimmie McMillian proudly serves as Chief Diversity Officer and Senior Corporate Counsel for Penske Entertainment Corp. The company is comprised of INDYCAR, IMS Productions and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.

As Chief Diversity Officer, Jimmie leads diversity and inclusion efforts across Penske Entertainment Corp. He’s also charged with implementing key pillars of Race for Equality & Change, an initiative to provide opportunities for underrepresented women and men in the motorsports industry and open wheel racing. As Senior Corporate Counsel, Jimmie’s work comprises a variety of legal matters including managing litigation and legal risks, drafting new event and facility contracts, vendor and sponsorship agreements.

Jimmie is a graduate of Indiana University – Bloomington and the Robert McKinney Indiana University School of Law. Jimmie proudly serves as a board member for Marion County Public Defender’s Agency, the United Way of Central Indiana, the Indianapolis Urban League and the Miracle Ride. More than a simple hobby, Jimmie also serves as President of 317 Ryders Motorcycle Club. He has served as a leader in local, state and national bar associations and has served as the Chair of The Racing Attorneys Conference.

Jimmie has shown a tireless commitment to improve the lives of young people and motivate them to succeed despite life’s various obstacles through his outstanding leadership and mentorship of others. As a passionate motorcycle, sports car and racing enthusiast, Jimmie truly enjoys the ability to live his dream of working at the “World’s Greatest Racetrack.”

Jimmie lives in Indianapolis with his wife Lisa, their four children and four grandchildren.

Thursday Evening

PETE YONKMAN

Pete Yonkman is president of Cook Group and Cook Medical in Bloomington, Indiana. He has been with the company for 24 years, starting in 2001 as in-house counsel. Pete has served in a variety of roles for Cook, including leading one of the local manufacturing sites and as executive vice president for 10 business units. Pete was named president of Cook Medical in 2014. In 2015 added the role of president of Cook Group. 

Pete is a born and bred Hoosier originally from Crown Point, Indiana. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Indiana University with degrees in psychology and philosophy and graduated with his law degree from the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University in 1998. 

Pete is passionate about finding unique opportunities to help Hoosiers reach their full potential. 

His leadership philosophy is that businesses are the missing engine needed to drive meaningful and lasting change. He believes that companies have the responsibility to use their core business operations, expertise, and resources to improve the communities where they operate.