Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom

Dr. Edwin J. Feulner, Jr. is Founder and former President of The Heritage Foundation. Over the course of his career, Feulner has served as an analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies (now the Center for Strategic and International Studies) and Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, an aide to Representative Melvin Laird (R-WI) and Chief of Staff to Congressman Phil Crane (R-IL), and as the Executive Director of the Republican Study Committee. Feulner took over the presidency of The Heritage Foundation in 1977, transforming it from a small think tank with nine employees to a highly influential research and policy institution of over two hundred and fifty. Feulner has also held leadership positions in a wide array of academic, political, and economic non-profits organizations and universities, and served on the Gingrich-Mitchell Congressional UN Reform Task Force and the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, of which he was Chairman. He served as the Public Member (Ambassador) of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Second Special Session on Disarmament. Feulner has written eight books, including The American Spirit. He holds a B.A. from Regis University, an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, and a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. Feulner is a member of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s Advisory Council and recipient of the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2006.