Lawrence Reed

Lawrence W. (Larry) Reed is president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Midland, Michigan-based research and educational institute. The Center's mission is to equip Michigan citizens and other decision-makers to better evaluate Michigan public policy options and to do so from a free market perspective.

Education and career

Reed holds a B.A. degree in Economics from Grove City College (1975) and an M.A. degree in History from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania (1978), both in Pennsylvania. He taught economics at Midland's Northwood University from 1977 to 1984 and chaired the Department of Economics from 1982 to 1984. He designed the university's unique dual major in Economics and Business Management and founded its annual, highly-acclaimed "Freedom Seminar." In 1982, he was a major party candidate in the general election for the U. S. House of Representatives from Michigan's 4th district. He moved to Boise, Idaho in 1984 to direct a policy institute there before moving back to Michigan to head up the Mackinac Center in December 1987.

Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Under his leadership, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has emerged as the largest and one of the most effective and prolific of over 40 state-based free market think tanks in America. In 1994, he was elected to a one-year term as President of the State Policy Network, a national organization whose membership consists of those state-based groups. Michigan Governor John M. Engler and many of his administration's officials frequently cited the work of the Mackinac Center as extraordinarily influential in shaping administration policies.

Degrees and honors

In 1994, Reed was invited to give the Commencement address to the graduating class of the Colleges of Education, Health, and Human Services and Extended Learning at Central Michigan University (CMU) before an audience of 6,000. CMU conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Administration. In 1998, Grove City College (his undergraduate alma mater) bestowed upon him its "Distinguished Alumni Award."

Writings and speeches

In the past twenty years, he has authored over 800 newspaper columns and articles, 200 radio commentaries, dozens of articles in magazines and journals in the U. S. and abroad, as well as five books. The two most recent are Lessons from the Past: The Silver Panic of 1893, and Private Cures for Public Ills: The Promise of Privatization, both published by the Foundation for Economic Education. Since 1978, he has delivered more than 1,000 speeches in 40 states and 15 foreign countries, including one at Peoples University in Beijing, China. He is also a frequent commentator on Michigan radio stations and has given more than 400 radio, television and newspaper interviews.

Travels and reporting

Reed's interests in political and economic affairs have taken him as a freelance journalist to 61 countries on six continents since 1985, including five visits to Russia, three to China, four to Nicaragua, two to Poland, two to Kenya, and others to such places as Cambodia, East Germany, Mozambique, Haiti, Japan, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, Greece, Italy, Australia, Slovenia, Croatia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Singapore, Israel, Egypt, Malaysia, Vietnam, Iceland and New Zealand.

From firsthand experience, he has reported on hyperinflation in South America, voodoo in Haiti, black markets behind the Iron Curtain, reforms and repression in China and Cambodia, the recent stunning developments in Eastern Europe, and civil war inside Nicaragua and Mozambique. Among many foreign adventures, Reed visited the ravaged nation of Cambodia in 1989 with his late friend, Academy Award winner Dr. Haing S. Ngor; recorded an authentic native voodoo ceremony in a remote region of Haiti in 1987; traveled with the Polish anti-communist underground for which he was arrested and detained by border police in 1986; interviewed presidents and cabinet officials in half a dozen nations; spent time with the contra rebels during the Nicaraguan civil war; and lived for two weeks with the rebels of Mozambique at their bush headquarters in 1991, at the height of that country's devastating guerrilla conflict.

Leadership

Reed was elected in 1994 to the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in Irvington, New York — one of the oldest and most respected economics institutes in America and publisher of the journal, Ideas on Liberty, for which he writes a monthly column entitled "Ideas and Consequences." In 1998, he was elected chairman of FEE's board of Trustees and reelected chairman in 1999 and 2000.

In 1993, he was appointed by Governor John Engler to the Headlee Amendment Blue Ribbon Commission. In 1994, he was named to a task force of the Secchia Commission on Total Quality Government, which was charged by Governor Engler with the mission of streamlining Michigan state government.

Community and charitable work

On a more local level, Reed has served on boards of directors of Eagle Village in Osceola County, the Voluntary Action Center of Midland, the Midland-Morning Rotary Club, and the Saginaw Valley Torch Club (president, 1998-1999), and recently completed a three-year term as a member of the board of a charter school in Winn, Michigan.

On September 6, 2004, Reed endorsed the Free State Project.

External links

* [http://www.mackinac.org/ Mackinac Center for Public Policy]
* [http://www.fee.org/ Foundation for Economic Education]
* [http://www.spn.org State Policy Network]
*The Silver Panic of 1893 (ISBN 0-910614-90-3)
* Private Cures for Public Ills: The Promise of Privatization (ISBN 1-57246-019-9)
* [http://video.barnesandnoble.com/search/Biography.asp?ctr=632518 Dr. Haing S. Ngor]