This week Roger welcomes Randy DeCleene, TFAS’s very own chief development and communications officer to the show. They discuss the transformative impact TFAS programs have on both current students and alumni of all ages, the achievement and growth of TFAS over the past year and the need for continued funding to support future students and programs. Plus, how Randy’s longstanding relationship with TFAS over the course of his career working in both the private sector and government, ultimately led him to a full-time role with TFAS.

Prior to joining TFAS in September 2023, Randy DeCleene was a partner at kglobal, a D.C. communications firm. He had previously served as deputy press secretary at the White House, special assistant to the Secretary of the Army at the Pentagon and as a senior advisor to the commanding general of the Third Infantry Division in northern Iraq. For his service at the Pentagon and in Iraq, Randy was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Global War on Terrorism and two Department of the Army Superior Civilian Service Awards.

Randy’s dedication to the mission of TFAS spans two decades, including as a member of the journalism advisory board, an intern host at kglobal and as a mentor for students. Now his focus with TFAS is overseeing the communications efforts and leading the development team.

Episode Transcript

The transcript below is lightly edited for clarity.

Roger Ream [00:00:02] Welcome to the Liberty + Leadership Podcast, a conversation with TFAS alumni, faculty and friends who are making an impact today. I’m your host, Roger Ream. My guest today is a colleague of mine at TFAS, with a very interesting background and an extremely important role. Randy DeCleene is chief development and communications officer at TFAS. Prior to joining our team in September of 2023, Randy was a partner in a communications firm. He previously served as deputy press secretary at the White House, special assistant to the Secretary of the Army at the Pentagon, and as a senior advisor to the commanding general of the third Infantry Division in northern Iraq. For his service at the Pentagon and in Iraq, Randy was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Global War on Terrorism and two Department of the Army Superior Civilian Service Awards. Randy has over 25 years’ experience working in both the private sector and government with expertise in development, communications, media relations, public affairs, public policy, marketing, branding and strategic planning. Randy’s dedication to the mission of TFAS spans more than two decades, including as a member of our Journalism Advisory Board, a host of interns at his communications firm and a mentor to students. Now, his focus with TFAS is overseeing our communications with donors and leading our development team. Randy, welcome to the Liberty + Leadership Podcast.  

Randy DeCleene [00:01:47] Very nice to be here, Roger.  

Roger Ream [00:01:49] Before we talk about your current role with TFAS, I think listeners would be interested to learn more about your experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as your work in the office of the Vice President in the White House. So, let’s start there. What path took you from your upbringing in Indiana to the office of the Vice President in the White House?  

Randy DeCleene [00:02:11] Well, you know, there’s an old saying there, it says: “Even a blind squirrel finds and not once in a while.” I grew up in South Bend, Indiana. I was born in 1974. So, obviously, the bulk of my childhood that I remember was in the 80s, and I was very interested in politics. I think of memories of that time. My dad was on the city council in a town called Mishawaka, which is right next to South Bend. We got the South Bend Tribune delivered every day. I was the editor of my middle school and later high school newspaper. Most every night we had dinner as a family at 5 or 530 p.m., and the news was always on, whether at the time it was like Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather or Peter Jennings. So, just kind of that world of news and politics, public service, it was just such a huge part of my life growing up. I just think about the constants that have been there the whole time, I mean, that’s really kind of hard. I would say news, politics, sports – it really was the formative building blocks of my entire childhood.  

Roger Ream [00:03:24] And you went to the University of Indiana or Indiana University, it’s correctly called, and Law School at Valparaiso, and then after some work out in the Midwest, you headed to D.C.?  

Randy DeCleene [00:03:38] I did. I worked on, starting in the early 90s, a lot on political campaigns. And really, my goal was always to do one rung higher. So, like the first political campaign I was paid for was a mayor’s race in Bloomington, Indiana, when I was a student there and I took a break from class. And then after that, I worked for somebody running for a county office and then after that worked for the county party and then after that worked for the statewide race, somebody running for Indiana secretary of state and on and on. And as I say, always wanted to do one higher. And then I moved over to Illinois and did a Senate race there. So, for a good 10 or 12 years, in addition to some side jobs at restaurants and bars and things, but my primary focus was working on Republican campaigns. And along the way, you’re going to have good mentors that help you, and I had a number of those. And one of them was a guy named Kevin Kellems, who we’ll talk more about when we get into talking about TFAS, but Kevin saw me speak at a Lincoln Day dinner in Indiana in the mid-nineties and then subsequently ended up hiring me a several times after that, but Kevin was the one who hired me to come from Illinois to Washington. So, he was extremely influential in that sense.  

Roger Ream [00:05:01] And a TFAS Alum.  

Roger Ream [00:05:04] You came to Washington and how do you end up at the White House?  

Randy DeCleene [00:05:08] Well, I was working on a U.S. Senate race in 2003 in Illinois. There was 6 or 7 Republicans running, 6 or 7 Democrats. One of the Democrats happened to be a guy named Barack Obama, who, of course, ended up winning that Senate race. But I was working on that campaign, and I was also going to law school, part-time at Valparaiso, which is in northwest Indiana. So, it was about an hour commute. I read in USA Today that Kevin Kellems had been named communications director and press secretary for Vice President Cheney. And as I said, I’d worked with Kevin on a number of campaigns in Indiana, and one night after law school, it was like 9:00 p.m., and I was driving from Valparaiso to my apartment in Chicago, I called him with the intention of just leaving a voicemail and saying congratulations, and instead he answered the phone, and I called his office line, which surprised me that he answered, and we talked for an hour and that was kind of that. And then, long story short, two days later, he called me back and he said: “You know, I got to thinking after talking to you, I need deputy press secretary for Vice President Cheney’s staff, and there’s really two things that I’m looking for. One is very easy to find in Washington, somebody that’s smart and you check that box even though you don’t live in Washington, and two, I need somebody that’s going to be loyal and that’s harder to find in Washington, and I know you could be a good, loyal deputy, so I’d like you to come to Washington.”  

Roger Ream [00:06:42] That story you just told emphasize is something we stress with our students I know about the importance of, it’s called often networking, but it’s just keeping relationships going with people you knew in the past and the fact that you made a phone call to congratulate someone you’d worked for, on this promotion he got, this new job he got, led to you getting a job that you weren’t necessarily looking even for at the time.  

Randy DeCleene [00:07:05] No, totally. The number of jobs, I would say when I speak sometimes as a TFAS mentor or whatever to young people, other than maybe my first job at Kroger’s, which is a grocery store in the Midwest, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a job that wasn’t somehow linked to somebody that I knew and it doesn’t mean the job is given to, but it opens the door so that you can make the case and get over the finish line. I mean, networking is, it sounds or trite to say, but it’s also so true, there’s almost nothing as important as that.  

Roger Ream [00:07:40] And then your experience then working in the White House, that must have been an incredible experience. I think you’ve told me you flew to like 34 different states on Air Force Two, with the Vice President. Anything to share about that experience? I mean, it’s remarkable.  

Randy DeCleene [00:07:55] It was remarkable. I was very fortunate to get the job on Vice President Cheney’s staff at the White House, and then 2004, of course, it was an election year. Kerry and Edwards ran against Bush and Cheney, and my role was basically to be in charge of the logistics when it came to the traveling press. And so, we always had hands on the trip, but somewhere between like five and ten different reporters with us. And during the campaigns, we travel four, five, six days a week, do two or three stops a day. So, just to do that as a 29, 30 year old, after having worked in politics for a long time in the middle of a campaign that was very close and to see the vice president and his family and I went to the debate, it was in Cleveland that year, it really was just amazing, and I have so many good memories of that. I mean, maybe the fondest one that comes to mind is, if you like politics, October and early November has just kind of a different feel in the air, the excitement of the election, and it’s getting crisp and cold and what have you. And in 2004, the Republicans thought maybe they had a chance to win Michigan, and they wanted to do a bus tour in southwestern Michigan, but none of the airports there were big enough to land Air Force Two. So, this was late October of 2004, to get to this bus trip, we had to find an airport in the area that was big enough to take the plane, and South Bend was the one that they chose. So, when Air Force Two landed, my parents and an aunt and some other relatives were there on the tarmac in South Bend to greet the plane, and the Vice President talked to them, and I was there. That’s a very fond memory, now, I guess, a little over 20 years later.  

Roger Ream [00:09:47] After you left the White House, you went over to the, was that directly to the Pentagon? 

Randy DeCleene [00:09:52] I spent a few years at some PR firms. I was at Ogilvy, at Ketchum and then from Ketchum, I unexpectedly went to the Pentagon, kind of through networking avenue that you were talking about. A friend of mine was in a meeting with the secretary of the Army, which is the highest-ranking civilian in the Army, because it’s a two headed situation with the chief of staff who’s uniformed, and then the secretary, who’s a civilian. A friend of mine was in a meeting with the secretary of the Army who was lamenting the state of his communications operation, and my friend said: “You need to talk to this guy.” And so, I went in, and it was only my second time ever in the Pentagon, and I interviewed with him. And at one point, maybe a few minutes into the interview, his name was Pete Geren, he used to be a congressman from Fort Worth, succeeded Jim Wright in the in the House. But I looked at him and I said: “Mr. Geren, I have to tell you, I don’t know anything about the army. Nothing. I just want to put that on the table.” And he got this real big smile and just said: “That’s exactly what I’m looking for.” So, then a few weeks later, I started at the Pentagon, which is something I certainly never thought that I would do.  

Roger Ream [00:11:08] And then you ended up in Iraq?  

Randy DeCleene [00:11:10] I did, and that was probably the most interesting and most meaningful thing that I’ve done. I spent two years working for the secretary of the Army, at the Pentagon, and while I was there, I got to know this two-star general, Major General Tony Cucolo is his name, and he was the chief of Army public affairs. So, he was in charge of all public affairs for the Army. And him and I became friendly, and his job after that was the commanding general of the third Infantry Division, which is out of Fort Stewart, Georgia, and they were deployed to Iraq. Around 20,000 soldiers were in his group that was called “Task Force Marne,” and it was based in Tikrit, which is Saddam’s hometown, about 100 miles north of Baghdad. And just the way the army structure was set up, General Cucolo was in charge of the seven provinces north of Baghdad. So, from Mosul, all the way over to the to the Kurdish region. And my job with him was basically to help with communications for members of Congress that came to visit senators, reporters, all of that, and really to provide kind of civilian perspective on things. People in the Army spend most of their time talking to people that are in the Army. So, my perspective was from more political, I had gone to law school, had never served in the Army or any other branch of military, so it was just a different perspective that I think that they found valuable. And it was, you know, being a civilian in a war zone, getting to travel with the general was a very special and it was quite a learning experience to say the least.  

Roger Ream [00:12:52] Did you have any close calls with action that was taking place there?  

Randy DeCleene [00:12:59] I certainly wouldn’t use the term close call, but our group lost 27 people during the year that we were there, which certainly, you know, kind of puts things in perspective. The base we were on was regularly rocketed by the enemy. They would pull up to the gates in trucks and shoot things in, but their ability to hit things wasn’t the most scientific operation, I would say that. But I will just tell you one kind of short story. When you’re in a war zone like that, you have a battle buddy, which what that is, is they always know where you are and you’re just in constant contact with them. And you generally have three meals a day with them and whatever. And long story short, my battle buddy was a guy who had done 2 or 3 tours as an MP in Vietnam. So, he was an older guy, and Tom Roberts was his name. And I was there advising the general in communications things, Tom was there advising him on security and training activities, because if you remember, part of the mission then was to train the Iraqi police and the Iraqi military. And Tom was kind of an old hand at that from his time during Vietnam. Anyway, Tom was my battle buddy, and we got to Tikrit in the first probably week, we were rocketed more than we were the whole year. So, I would be in my trailer sleeping and like you would feel the ground shake and the trailer would shake. This was all very new to me, and one day at lunch, I said to Tom: “Tom, I don’t know if this is going to work. It makes me nervous.” And he didn’t even miss a beat, he just kept beating his food: “Randy, when it’s your time, it’s your time. You just don’t even think twice about it.” And I adopted that mentality, and then soon after that, when the rockets would come, it didn’t bother me, and that was a good advice from Tom.  

Roger Ream [00:14:57] Wow, I would have trouble trying to accept that as the advice I want to follow. But you had your service then in government and the private sector and you went back to the private sector at a company called “kglobal” and TFAS has been a client there, and they launch this podcast that we’re doing and have been doing now for several years. But what you back into the private sector? I mean, is that just kind of the things, after a while in government, you’re ready to move back?  

Randy DeCleene [00:15:29] Yeah, I think probably the biggest thing was I was tired of having elections decide the future of my life and where I was going to live. It’s ironic how things like that turn out because I moved to D.C., in January of 2004, and if Kerry would have beat Bush, I would have went back to Chicago, at the end of 2004, and I just think how different my life would have been, where Bush ended beating Kerry, and then I stayed and have done all these things that you’re talking about. But we certainly wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation. That election hadn’t turned out like that. And, working at the White House was kind of a, all these done campaigns, doing that is kind of the pinnacle of doing campaigns. So, I just wanted to try something different. And, in the private sector, as I said, your job wasn’t decided by election, you got paid more. The private sector ended up being very good.  

Roger Ream [00:16:26] Now, your connection to TFAS predated our work together when you were at kglobal. Can you talk a little bit about how you first got involved? Who introduced you to TFAS? Do you remember?  

Randy DeCleene [00:16:38] Yes, it was a name we already said, Kevin Kellems, who was a TFAS alum, I believe, in the late 80s. So, he’s a little older than me, and he’s the one that brought me to Washington. I could go back at my calendar and look, but I’m convinced it was in my first week or two in town, Kevin and I went out with a guy named Steve Hayes, who was a TFAS Alum and worked at TFAS. I think he met his wife at TFAS, but at the time he was working for The Weekly Standard, and the three of us went out and had dinner. In my mind, Steve at the time was kind of a celebrity because he was working at The Weekly Standard and that was the Washington magazine that I read. And so, to go out with him was cool, and somehow in the course of that, TFAS came up, and I think they took me to an event, and the rest is history, especially when it came to the interns. When I came back from Iraq, I started a PR firm in D.C. that had 5 or 6 employees, and when I left 12.5 years later, we had, give or take around 75. But I started in May 2011, and I quickly realized it was all senior people, like there was no mid-level or junior people and I didn’t really know how to react. And so, I reached out to Joe Stars, who I knew from the journalism programs that TFAS. 

Roger Ream [00:18:10] Who oversees our journalism programs. 

Randy DeCleene [00:18:12] And I said: “I’d like some interns.” And then starting in June of 2011, we had 3 or 4 TFAS interns, and then, I’m 99% certainty can say, every semester: summer, spring and fall from 2011 through summer 2023, with the exception of one, we had multiple TFAS interns. So, I had a lot of exposure to them and hired a lot of them, served as a reference to a lot of them. It was excellent.  

Roger Ream [00:18:43] So, now you’ve expanded your responsibilities from a focus mostly on communications and public affairs to include not only overseeing that at TFAS Communications, but also fundraising and our team of people in the fundraising shop. Why should people support TFAS? 

Randy DeCleene [00:19:05] We could do a whole podcast on that, but probably the simplest reason I’d say is just the impact that it has across so many groups of people, whether it’s high school students, college students, postgraduate students. I was thinking the other day when we were talking about doing this podcast, if you just look at last year with the different TFAS programs, there was over a thousand students involved from over 40 states, from over 16 countries and from over 150 schools. And when you think about those times year after year after year, the impact on young people is extraordinary. And as the country goes through different things and different phases and whatever, and there are new generations coming, to have students who are exposed to new ideas and taught in things like economics and honorable leadership, and some of these things that TFAS does, it just becomes so much more important.  

Roger Ream [00:20:06] What has perhaps surprised you or anything you’ve seen since you’ve joined our team that is very different than you anticipated?  

Randy DeCleene [00:20:16] I would say the biggest thing maybe is how similar it is. When I look at my career, everything we’ve talked about, whether it was in campaigns or at the White House, at the Pentagon or at the PR firms, was all about communicating something to someone, and maybe getting them to buy a product or to feel a certain way about an issue or two. Like what the Army was doing at a given time, or to like this candidate. Coming to a nonprofit like TFAS, which is my first job with a nonprofit, to some degree didn’t know what to expect, but I’ve been very surprised at how similar it is. And it’s still that common thread of communicating something to someone, whether it’s talking to alumni or whether it’s talking to donors or students. For students, it’s maybe getting them to sign up for TFAS. For a donor, it’s getting them to understand the value of what their dollar does. For alumni, it’s helping them continue to appreciate the experience that they had or whatever the case. But it all kind of still fits in that mold of is distinctly and clearly and plainly as possible, trying to get a message across to a certain audience.  

Roger Ream [00:21:35] And what do you see as the priorities that you’re focused on for 2025?  

Randy DeCleene [00:21:41] Certainly one of the big thing is you always want to raise more than you did the year before and raise enough to meet the budget, because we, as I said, whether it’s the U.S. programs or the international programs or the high school or the college or the postgraduate, the real value in what TFAS does is their programing. And without being able to have the classes and have the professors and have the speakers and have the reading groups and all of that, it’s not really a program. So, certainly meeting our fundraising goals is essential so that the programmatic side can do what they do. And I’d say secondly, the big thing, I think, is just kind of keeping up with how things evolve and how people consume information. The way somebody raised money 15 years ago or ten years ago or five years ago is in the same way you do it now. And so, whether it’s the new forms of social media that people communicate on, but also recognizing the fact that a lot of times TFAS donors and through a lot of nonprofits are older and some of the more traditional ways appeal to them. So, it’s really operating across that spectrum of the different ways that people perceive information and try to stay as much ahead of the curve as you can. You know, like we saw that in this last election where you had Donald Trump, for example, doing a three+ hour interview with Joe Rogan on his podcast. I mean, when I heard, he was going to do Joe Rogan, I thought: “All right, that’s good,” and then when I heard the interview was three hours, I couldn’t even believe it. Like, that’s not a normal activity for somebody running for president. But clearly, that that is kind of one of the mediums that people, especially young people, receive information now. And just an example, I think, of his campaign staying ahead of the curve.  

Roger Ream [00:23:43] One thing that, you know, I think was very interesting that we talked about when you joined TFAS was this integration of communications functions, the things we’re doing to communicate the stories and the success that we’re having with the fundraising function and making sure that donors who support us are hearing about the results of what their money is enabling us to do. And we’ve had a lot to report in that regard, as you touched on. We had we’ve had a record number of students in our high school programs and record number of teachers were training to teach economics effectively. We had full enrollment in our college programs, both in the U.S. and in Prague, in South America. And now we’re doing so much more with young professionals and law students and students interested in careers in journalism. You don’t want to hide it under a bushel, you want to communicate that effectively to donors using all these mediums. Is that kind of the key challenge that you’ve been able to get your hands around?  

Randy DeCleene [00:24:44] Definitely. I think whether, and it surprised me a little bit more on the development side than the communication side, but essentially, if you’re in one of those or both of those areas, you’re a storyteller and you need to, as you say, tell these stories or people aren’t going to know that they happen. And I’ve certainly observed, especially in interactions with donors, that the most impactful way you can tell the story of the impact that TFAS has is through the students. When they meet the donors and you just see like the intellectual curiosity and the desire to learn and all of the positive things from these young people, and they just tell the story with their presence in a sense, and you can if you’re good, you do that through written pieces we put out or through videos or through just having the students meet the donors in person, but having them see firsthand the people impacted by what twice does on a programmatic side or on a development side is the best way to tell the story, I would say.  

Roger Ream [00:25:51] I know we all love it when supporters of ours can attend a program, come to one of the high school programs all over the country that we are doing in the summer and sit in the back of the classroom or come see a summer program in D.C. or meet alumni. This is really very, very important. I often say, hardly a day goes by where I don’t get an email from someone on our staff saying this TFAS alum just got some new job or just wrote this great story in The Wall Street Journal or accomplished something here or there. And then tied to that is so often that testimonial from that person saying: “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for the TFAS program I attended” or “My thinking about the world, my analysis of world events has been transformed by the economics courses I took a TFAS” or “What I learned when I was in the program, in my internship or in the classroom or hearing from a guest lecturer.” So, that’s the challenge, is getting that story told of the accomplishments of our graduates, the fact that they are becoming leaders and our leaders. We just elected three to Congress a month ago, and the fact that that career path was influenced by us, they might not have been where they are today. Our Rago Fellowship is a clear example of that, with these fellowships we give to put people at The Wall Street Journal and three now are working full-time at The Wall Street Journal, on the editorial pages. We have someone at the Boston Globe and others that we’re developing and putting on those tracks to success.  

Randy DeCleene [00:27:29] Well, and that’s kind of another element of it, I think is the real world, real time impact that people that have done the program are doing, which I think from a donor perspective, they like to see that because it’s not all theoretical, opining about: “Well, what would all be like if we didn’t have Obamacare or whatever.” Like that’s just very theoretical, where these folks that you’re talking about at The Journal and the Boston Globe and the young lady at The Boston Globe is on Fox Business all the time. They are weighing in on what’s happening now and having an impact on shaping the conversation. Or if you look at all of the 20 or so student newspapers that we have on different campuses, I think including all of the Ivy League schools, we saw some of the really horrible things with the anti-Semitism and the protests and things, and then these are papers that were providing a point of view that was very different from the administration or from the mainstream, if you will, college paper that was putting out other things. And so, to be able to have impact on current events in the moments with students that have taken different tea fasts, classes and programs and lectures is incredibly important.  

Roger Ream [00:28:44] That’s a great point you’re making, Randy, because it’s not just a donor who gives a gift to TFAS, isn’t just making a long-term investment on some college student who maybe 30 years from now will make a difference. We’re helping students who are making a difference right now on their campuses with the papers that they’re publishing or in their professions, with the articles they’re writing, the op-eds they’re writing in The Wall Street Journal, or the Boston Globe and elsewhere in the media. It is having impact right now. Well, anything else, any other stories you want to share that kind of exemplify the impact of our work or kind of you see as the challenges that you face in terms of, you’ve had this full circle moment that brought you to TFAS full-time after having been a volunteer for many years? I just wanted to see if you had any closing thoughts before we have to wrap this up. 

Randy DeCleene [00:29:41] I think maybe the biggest thing or one of the biggest things that struck me is just the impact that it has on people’s lives. I was thinking about, I mentioned, in 2011, we got our first batch at the PR firm of TFAS as interns, and we had 2 or 3 that we agreed to take, and then for whatever reason, one young woman, her name was Claire Tonneson, hadn’t been placed, and Joe stars who we already referenced, called me and said: “Would you take one more student? I know you’ve already got several, but would you take one more?” And I said: “Sure, we’ll take her.” And Claire was from Portland, Oregon, and came through TFAS because she wanted to take classes at Georgetown. And she was just the best intern, maybe, that I’d ever had, and we ended up hiring her. She was my first hire at the PR firm, and she worked there for 3 or 4 years, and she’s still in D.C. She works at a different PR firm called Sunshine Sachs. She’s married to somebody that’s on CNN. When I say this to say like I think about how it’s impacted her life, where if that weird time of, set of circumstances didn’t happen with her coming to kglobal and getting hired and staying and whatever, you know, who knows where she’d be, but the initial spark for all of that was from TFAS or there’s another young guy named Blake Hesch who is from my hometown, and long story short, I’m very good friends with his uncle. He had a tough upbringing, and he was raised by his grandparents, and the only way that he could come to Washington was through a full scholarship from TFAS, and he applied, and he really wanted to go and he said: “I just don’t have the money.” I emailed somebody at TFAS and I said: “I don’t know how the scholarship programs work, but this would be a great person to get a scholarship to.” He ended up getting it, spent a semester in D.C., interned at kglobal. He totally transformed his life and his interest in politics and public affairs. He later worked for the mayor of Indianapolis. He just did a Senate race in Ohio. Just a wonderful young man. And I say this to say about Blake and Claire is just when you’ve been involved with an organization like TFAS, for so long, like I have in the different ways, whether it be a volunteer, a mentor, now an employee, whatever, but you see the real impact on these people’s lives, that they end up doing things and realizing things and going places that they would not have done without the opportunity and the exposure to different things that TFAS provided them. So, to see that in people that I know and then to be able to follow their lives literally decades later, I think really shows the quality of the organization and I guess makes the point. You know, since 1967, it wouldn’t have been around so long if it wasn’t having an impact like that.  

Roger Ream [00:32:54] Well, that brings to mind one of my favorite stories on the TFAS Alum. A student who came to us, he attended Drew University in the Northeast, and he had taken one economics course in college there, and he said it was boring, dry, he didn’t like it. And he applied to our program. We gave him a scholarship. He came to D.C., we placed him on the Hill and the Senate Judiciary Committee, attached with Senator Orrin Hatch, who was serving from Utah. And he took our economics course that we require all students to take taught by then our Professor George Viksnins, Latvian American, who, of course, growing up in Latvia knew who the enemy was. But this young man, it lit a spark in him. He came to love economics. He decided to go to law school from his internship experience, and now he’s serving on the Arizona Supreme Court. Just won his retention election a month ago. His name’s Clint Bollick. He had co-founded the Institute of Justice, which has done great work. He helped found and work at the Landmark Legal Foundation, which has done great work. And he worked at the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, doing great work on legal issues there. And now he’s a Supreme Court Justice. So, he is our poster child in terms of saying “None of that would have happened if it hadn’t been coming one summer to a program after seeing a brochure about what we offer.” So, this is like you said, it’s getting to meet these kids when they’re in college and then following their careers and helping them along the way, because we’re doing this even after they finish our program, is continuing to work with our alumni and help them advance in their careers. Well, that’s great, Randy. It’s great to have you on the team with us. You’ve been there, now over a year, of course, but I think we only have higher to climb and more to accomplish. 

Randy DeCleene [00:34:50] Money to raise.  

Roger Ream [00:34:51] More money to raise. We’ve been pushing growth very aggressively, but prudently, and it’s needed. Our country needs it and the young people we’re developing need it. So, I think this has been a great discussion today.  

Randy DeCleene [00:35:05] I’ve really enjoyed it. Roger, thank you.  

Roger Ream [00:35:06] Thank you.  

Roger Ream [00:35:08] Thank you for listening to the Liberty + Leadership Podcast. If you have a comment or question, please drop us an email at podcast@TFAS.org, and be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app and leave a five-star review. Liberty + Leadership is produced at Podville Media. I’m your host Roger Ream, and until next time, show courage in things large and small.  

ABOUT THE PODCAST

TFAS has reached more than 49,000 students and professionals through academic programs, fellowships and seminars. Representing more than 140 countries, TFAS alumni are courageous leaders throughout the world forging careers in politics, government, public policy, business, philanthropy, law and the media.

Liberty + Leadership is a conversation with TFAS alumni, faculty and friends who are making a real impact. Hosted by TFAS President Roger Ream ’76, the podcast covers guests’ experiences, career stories and leadership journeys. 

If you have a comment or question for the show, please email podcast@TFAS.org.

View future episodes and subscribe at TFAS.org/podcast.