Caleb Smith (lead editor)

Caleb participated in debate in Region 4 for five years. A three-time debate finalist, he qualified to Nationals in team policy in 2010 after placing second at Region 4 Regionals. Caleb enjoys agriculture and sells produce from his garden at a local farmers market, and currently works in mechanical maintenance. His leisure interests include strategy board games, playing the banjo, and folding super-complex origami.

Elizabeth Raabe (managing editor)

Elizabeth Raabe is a senior at Christendom College, where she studies literature and philosophy. Between work and study, she makes time for her acting, photography, outdoor and writing interests. In highschool, she successfully competed in speech and debate for four years with the NCFCA and three years with Stoa, winning both national and regional awards.

Elijah Schow (formatting tsar)

After a successful debate career, including placing 10th in Team Policy at the 2012 NCFCA National Championship and being the top-ranked Team Policy speaker in South Carolina two years running, Elijah became a professional user experience designer. His debate-related projects have included the CITE formatting system and formatting and design for multiple best-selling sourcebooks.

Daniel Gaskell (publishing director)

The developer of the free Factsmith research software, Daniel co-founded COG Publishing in 2009. He competed in Team Policy debate for six years, winning top speaker awards and qualifying to Nationals a total of four times (twice in NCFCA, twice in Stoa). He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in paleontology at Yale University.

Laura Adams

Laura McKinney Adams debated in the NCFCA for three years. At the 2012 NCFCA National Championship, she was ranked 2nd Team Policy Speaker, along with 10th in Team Policy Debate with Elijah Schow. Laura graduated summa cum laude from Liberty University in 2015. During her time at Liberty, she interned at the American Psychological Association in Washington, DC. Laura is married and is currently a stay at home mother to her son Elliot.

Anthony Severin

After a successful four year of policy debate career in the NCFCA (including a 6-0 record and 5th place finish at the 2011 Texas Open and winning the final elimination round at the 2011 Frisco Practice Tournament), Anthony founded WhyDebate and began coaching debaters across the country - some of whom received awards at both the regional and national level. He currently works as a policy analyst for the Texas State Legislature.

Greg Guggenmos

Greg is a rising sophomore at SMU majoring in Data Science and pursuing a master's degree in Applied Statistics and Data Analytics. During high school, he competed in the NCFCA for five years, qualifying to the National Invitational Tournament three times in various events, including LD and TP debate. Before coming to work with COG, Greg lobbied for the Texas Home School Coalition during the 84th Texas Legislative session and worked as a health care policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. In his free time he enjoys playing frisbee, rock-climbing, and obsessively reading the Economist cover-to-cover.

Benjamin Rolsma

Ben is a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in economics. He had a successful, seven year career in the NCFCA, three doing debate. He won the LD speaker award at regionals in 2015, qualified to nationals in TP at the season's first national open in 2016, and placed fourteenth in extemporaneous at nationals in 2016. Most of the time you can find him obsessively reading the news.

Eli Martin

Eli is a sophomore in high school, who has been competing for four years in home school speech and debate, ever since he was twelve years old. In that time, God has blessed him with a placing at the 2015 NCFCA National Championship in TP debate, along with placings at the Regional Invitational in Impromptu, Apologetics, and Extemporaneous. In his spare time, Eli is an avid tennis player, who loves all things exercise and being outdoors.

Connor Daniels

Connor Daniels is a high school senior and 3rd-year competitor in the NCFCA. Qualifying to the National Championship in 2016, he is a two-time team policy debate finalist and the 1st place finisher in extemporaneous at the 2016 Region 8 Invitational. Outside of speech and debate, Connor enjoys playing chess, singing in a quartet, and (especially) reading.

Christopher Smith (managing editor)





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