Michael L. Whalen, President & Chief Executive Officer, Heart of America Restaurants & Inns has been elected to the Board of Directors of National Center of Policy Analysis, or NCPA. The organization, with offices in Dallas, TX and Washington D.C., was established in 1983 as a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research institute by Dr. John Goodman and Jeanette Goodman. The mission is to seek innovative private-sector solutions to public policy problems solving problems by relying on the strengths of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector rather than government regulations and control.
Among the issues addressed by NCPA are taxes, social security and welfare reform, health, women in the economy, education, environmental and regulatory reform and crime.
Whalen, a Bronze Tablet graduate of the University of Illinois and Harvard Law honors graduate, resides in Bettendorf, IA with his wife, Kim, and two children. His business enterprises include 14 restaurants, 8 hotels and several more in various stages of development. The company's Machine Shed Restaurants are in seven cities of five Midwestern states.
He is involved in several commercial real estate developments and has a long history of civic commitment including Past President of the Iowa Hospitality Association and Iowa Young Presidents' Organization. He recently founded Wildwood Hills Ranch, a 400-acre nonprofit camp for at-risk youth in St. Charles, IA and was inducted into the Junior Achievement's Business Hall of Fame in 2001; Whalen has been recognized by Inc. magazine as Entrepreneur of the Year, and received the Small Business Administration's Entrepreneurial Success Award.