ROBERT H. FOGLESONG is the President and Executive Director of the Appalachian
Leadership and Education Foundation (ALEF), a non-profit operating
to identify our next generation of leaders in Appalachia and
to support their journey toward academic, leadership, and
character excellence. To accomplish this mission, ALEF has
operating arrangements with several universities to help sponsor
leadership honors programs and sponsors needs based fellowships
for extraordinary young men and women across a spectrum of
academic majors.
Foglesong has been designated by the President
of the United States to be Co-Chairman of the Joint US –
Russia Commission on POWs/MIAs, an agency whose purpose is
to determine what happened to missing American service members
who were taken into former Soviet Union countries. He has been a member of various Boards of Directors.
Previously, Foglesong served as the 18th
President of Mississippi State University (MSU) during a period
of unprecedented growth in student enrollment, research and
development contracts, and economic development across the
state of Mississippi. During his tenure, MSU moved forward
in every major measure of university success. His tenure was
marked by the introduction of numerous innovative concepts
to include leadership development programs, distance learning
initiatives, and renewed success in national academic and
athletic competitions.
Prior to serving as President of MSU, he
was nominated by the President, confirmed by the US Senate,
and served as a four star general in the US Air Force. In
addition to operational assignments around the globe, many
of his duties required almost daily interface with members
of Congress, the White House, and many governmental interagency
offices. Foglesong had CEO responsibilities for field units
with budgets up to $3B per year which would have ranked 110th
and 430th on the Fortune 500 List.
Foglesong was most often asked to lead and
manage large organizations in establishing a sense of relevancy
given a constantly changing national and international environment.
A significant amount of his time was spent as a national security
advisor at Cabinet and Presidential levels.
As a practical matter, Foglesong has spent
35 years in public service with a clear understanding of the
role leadership plays in establishing a sense of integrity/ethics,
encouraging service above self, and fostering an attitude
of excellence. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations,
his 65 publications cover a range of subjects including technical
and leadership topics. A graduate of West Virginia University
(BS, MS, PhD), he was a member of Tau Beta Pi and numerous
academic and leadership honoraries.
He has accumulated 30 military awards for
leadership and technical skills. He has an honorary Doctorate
of Strategic Intelligence. He has been honored as a Distinguished
Alumni of West Virginia University, selected by the West Virginia
Education Alliance as a Graduate of Distinction, and was selected
by the West Virginia Executive Magazine as the Patriot of
the Year for 2005. He was selected as the Tau Beta Pi distinguished
alumni of the year for 2007. He is married to Mary Thrasher
Foglesong and has two children – David and Mark. Hobbies
include running marathons, collecting slide rules, collecting
potato mashers, and public speaking.
