Sam Brownback has spent his life in the service of others. He was born in Garnett, Kansas and raised on the Linn County family farm.

At Prairie View High School, Sam was elected state president of Future Farmers of America. His interest in public service continued as he attended Kansas State University. During his senior year at KSU, Sam served as student body president. After graduation, Sam decided to attend law school at the University of Kansas where he was his class president before completing his law degree in 1982.

Sam met his wife Mary while they were both in law school. They have now been married for almost 40 years and have five children and seven grandchildren.

In 1986, Sam became the state’s youngest Secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture. In 1994, he was elected to represent the 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996 where he carried the first comprehensive federal anti-trafficking law. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 declared human trafficking a federal crime and increased protection for victims.

In the Senate he was a leading advocate for freedom of religious liberty around the globe. Sam worked actively on the issue in multiple countries and was a key sponsor of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

Sam honored a term limits pledge and ran for Governor of Kansas in 2010. He became the 46th Governor of the Sunflower State in 2011 and was re-elected in 2014.

President Trump nominated Sam to serve as Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom in 2017. He resigned as Governor of Kansas on January 31, 2018 and was sworn in to his diplomatic post the next day. He served as Ambassador until January 2021.

He currently serves as co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit and as a Senior Fellow at Open Doors USA.