PLC 2026 to Feature ‘Fireside Chat’ with U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon

Register TODAY at www.paleadershipconference.org

(Harrisburg, PA) Linda E. McMahon, the 13th U.S. Secretary of Education, will participate in the opening ‘fireside chat’ at the 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference which will be held April 9-11, 2026 at the Penn Harris Convention Center in Camp Hill, PA. The chat with Mary Stiffler, executive director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the America First Policy Institute, will focus on expanding school choice, empowering teachers, and returning education oversight to the states.

The featured dinner speaker will be Newsmax founder/CEO Chris Ruddy. Washington Examiner columnist and Fox News contributor Joe Concha will be the luncheon speaker. Speakers include Slippery Rock Mayor Jondavid “JD” Longo; State Treasurer Stacy Garrity, U.S. Representative Scott Perry, Cliff Maloney of the Citizens Alliance, U.S. Senator David McCormick, and Pennsylvania Attorney General David Sunday. Additional speakers will be announced over the coming weeks.

The Pennsylvania Leadership Conference is the premiere gathering of public policy conservatives each year in the Keystone State. It is the largest and longest-running of the state-based conservative conferences regularly attracting a long list of conservative elected officials, scholars, journalists, and activists for three days of speeches, panel presentations, workshops, and networking.

Registration for the 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference is NOW OPEN at www.paleadershipconference.org where the full agenda is now posted.

This year’s Pennsylvania Leadership Conference will provide attendees with an expanded menu of workshop sessions on Thursday and a new welcome reception on Thursday evening.

The 2026 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference will feature five panel presentations including: The Health Care Check Up: Why Competition Beats Bureaucracy; Ain’t Got Stuff Done: Examining Governor Shapiro’s record; Ideas to Impacts: Entrepreneurship in Pennsylvania; Protect Women’s Sports; and Powering the Future: Energy and AI in Pennsylvania.

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Linda E. McMahon was sworn in as the 13th U.S. Secretary of Education on March 3, 2025, appointed by President Donald J. Trump. A businesswoman, education policy leader, and public servant, she has decades of experience in job creation and expanding educational opportunities.

Born in North Carolina, McMahon earned a bachelor’s degree in French from East Carolina University, initially aspiring to be a teacher. She later served on the Connecticut State Board of Education and the Board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University, advocating for teacher empowerment and student success.

She has had a multi-decade career in business as CEO of WWE, creating thousands of jobs and sparking her passion for Career and Technical Education (CTE). Under the first Trump Administration, she served as Administrator of the Small Business Administration, and later chaired the America First Policy Institute, where she focused on reforms to education and workforce policy.

As Secretary, McMahon prioritizes expanding school choice, empowering teachers, and returning education oversight to the states. She calls Connecticut home and has two children and six grandchildren.

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Mary Stiffler serves as the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania State Chapter AFPI Pennsylvania. After spending her early career in business development and fundraising in Southern California, she relocated to Pennsylvania a decade ago to pursue her passion in veteran advocacy. She applied her previous experience as a Founding Board Member of Racing for Heroes, helping advance adaptive sports therapy programs for Pennsylvania veterans.

Realizing what it would take to make real change, she dove into the world of politics in 2020 managing 13 counties for President Trump’s reelection campaign. That foundation and the expanded campaign roles in the following cycle resulted in a network of strong relationships with community leaders and elected officials at every level throughout the Commonwealth.

She earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Central Missouri. She and her husband, Tim, a US Navy Veteran, have two adult children and live in Central Pennsylvania.

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