Gay Gaines is an energetic activist, who believes deeply in the importance of family values and volunteer service. Some of the many organizations that have been the recipient of her volunteer service include The Guthrie Theater and American Diabetes Association in Minnesota, The Art Institute and Juvenile Diabetes Foundation in Illinois, The McCarter Theater in New Jersey, Best Friends Foundation in Washington, DC, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Palm Beach chapter and The Hudson Institute, Indianapolis.
Gaines was the first elected Chairman of the National Review Institute, an organization founded by William F. Buckley Jr., "to promote conservative ideas and causes." She has consistently championed Republican candidates for state and national office.
In Mercer County, New Jersey, she was Republican County Committee Person. Gaines holds a B.A. from Sweet Briar College where she graduated with honors in 1959. She studied Interior Design at the University of Minnesota and for two years worked for Robert Lenox Associates prior to opening her own business in 1976. She was President of Gay Hart Gaines, Inc., for 10 years. In 1993, Speaker Newt Gingrich recruited Gaines, a charter member of GOPAC since 1985, to be the new Chairman and CEO of GOPAC. Her focus was helping to elect Republican majorities across the country to state and local offices and to elect a Republican majority in the United States House of Representatives.
Gaines married Stanley Noyes Gaines in 1959. They have four children and seven grandchildren.
