The Fund for American Studies (TFAS) is pleased to announce the addition of Robert (Bob) Pruger to the TFAS Board of Trustees.
Pruger has been a faithful supporter of TFAS since 2003. Before his retirement in 2014, Pruger spent his career in accounting and finance as the CPA and CFO for several companies, including The Rudolph Libbie Group.
In retirement, he served on the TFAS Board of Regents, on boards of other nonprofit organizations, the Northwest Ohio Classical Academy, a tuition-free charter school affiliated with Hillsdale College’s Barney Charter School Initiative. It was important to Pruger that he not only find enjoyment in his retirement years, but that he also builds a rewarding and flourishing life. To do that, Pruger looked to the two guiding stars that motivate him the most: providing a meaningful education to young leaders and improving policy. It was at this intersection where he found TFAS, an organization that believes connects those two motivators.
Pruger began supporting TFAS because he believed that students in the U.S., particularly those studying humanities, were no longer challenged in critical thinking. Instead, they are told what to think and to accept indoctrination as an unquestionable truth.
“TFAS reflects the best that is America: political liberty, personal responsibility, free market economics,” said Pruger. “Its educational programs that promote those values and other similar values in an atmosphere of free, open and civil debate.”
He and his wife, Teri Sharp, became even more connected with TFAS when they traveled to Crete, Greece, in 2005 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the former TFAS International student program that reached students from the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean. He was amazed with students coming together from different backgrounds to learn, explore and create unexpected friendships with one another.
“That time in Crete just wowed us,” he said. “We saw students with very different backgrounds (who normally would be afraid of each other) talk, discuss and even argue. But at the end of each day’s program, they met for a meal, laughed together and made friends. Pretty remarkable for even 20 years ago.”
Since that first trip to Greece, the Prugers have continued to stay involved and travel with TFAS to France, England, Chile, China and Morocco to experience different cultures and connect with TFAS alumni from around the world. Next on their list is attending the upcoming central Europe trip in the summer of 2024 on an adventure of “Exploring the Future of Freedom in Europe: 35 Years After the Fall of the Iron Curtain.”
For more than 20 years, the Prugers have been proud supporters of TFAS’s mission to develop courageous leaders, not only supporting TFAS International and Collegiate Programs but also proudly supporting TFAS’s high school programs division, the Foundation for Teaching Economics (FTE).
Pruger believes in the value of TFAS programs and is eager to further his commitment to the mission of TFAS as a member of the Board of Trustees.
“Serving on the Board of Trustees is an honor, pleasure and responsibility,” he said.
TFAS is excited to welcome Pruger to the Board of Trustees and is grateful for his decades-long service to the mission of TFAS.
The Board of Trustees is the governing body of TFAS, comprised of individuals dedicated to promoting the mission of the organization through time, talents and financial support. To learn more about the board, visit TFAS.org/trustees.