| Ed Feulner | |
|---|---|
| Born | Edwin J. Feulner Jr. August 12, 1941 Chicago, Illinois |
Edwin John Feulner Jr. (born August 12, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois) is President of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, a position he has held since 1977.
The mission of the Heritage Foundation is "to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."
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Feulner was born to Helen Joan Feulner and Edwin J. Feulner Sr., owner of a Chicago real estate firm, and grew up in Elmhurst, Illinois in a Roman Catholic family. His sister, Joanne, is a nun in the Order of St. Joseph (CSJ), based in Brentwood, New York.
Feulner and his wife, Linda Claire Leventhal, live in Alexandria, Virginia. They have two children, Edwin J. Feulner, III, and Mrs. Emily V. Lown.
Feulner attended Immaculate Conception High School (Elmhurst, Illinois) before he graduated from Colorado's Regis University with a bachelor's degree in English in 1963. After receiving an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business in 1964, he attended Georgetown University and the London School of Economics. He then earned a doctorate degree at the University of Edinburgh.
Feulner began his Washington career as analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then called the Center for Strategic Studies. He later became a congressional aide to congressman (and later Secretary of Defense) Melvin Laird. Feulner subsequently became a long-serving executive assistant to Illinois Republican congressman Phil Crane. Prior to becoming President of Heritage, Feulner was Executive Director of the Republican Study Committee.[1]
Feulner was a Founding Trustee of the Heritage Foundation from 1973 until 1977, when he left Crane's employ to run Heritage full-time. At the time, Heritage had had nine employees and four presidents in four years. Feulner brought a new focus to marketing Heritage's ideas by issuing and promoting policy papers. The practice was unusual for Washington think tanks in the 1970s, and it brought national attention to Heritage. As Feulner related to The Washington Examiner, "It doesn't do us any good to have great ideas if we are not out there peddling our products."[1]
He is the former President and currently serves as the Treasurer of the Mont Pelerin Society; he has served as Trustee and former Chairman of the Board of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute; Member of the Board of the National Chamber Foundation; a Board Member of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques; and member of the Board of Visitors of Regis, his undergraduate alma mater.
Among other executive and advisory roles, Feulner is the former President of The Philadelphia Society, and past Director of the Sequoia Bank, the Council for National Policy, the Acton Institute and the American Council in Germany.
Feulner served as a member of the Gingrich-Mitchell Congressional U.N. Reform Task Force (2005), Meltzer Commission from 1999-2000. He was the Vice Chairman of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, known as the Kemp Commission, from 1995-1996. He also was Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (1982–91), a consultant for domestic policy to President Reagan, and an adviser to several government departments and agencies.
In 1989 he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second highest civilian award in the United States awarded by the President of the United States, by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. He is also past president and current Treasurer and Trustee of the Mont Pelerin Society, a global economics society. Since 2006, Feulner has been a member of the Honorary Board of Trustees of Fundación Burke in Spain.
In 2007 GQ magazine named Feulner one of the "50 most powerful people in D.C."[2] The same year, Feulner was named one of the "100 most influential" American conservatives by the UK Telegraph.[3]
He speaks in the United States and abroad, has been awarded 11 honorary degrees and has received honors from the governments of Taiwan and South Korea.
Feulner is a member of the advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.[4]