New Opportunities for a Free Market Veteran

If you saw my previous end-of-the-year post, you know that we at CEI are eager to take on the challenges of 2017. Before we close the books on 2016 for good, though, I want to highlight one particularly important personnel change that came at the end of this year.

After 23 years Greg Conko, who most recently served as CEI’s Executive Director, has decamped for the other side of the Potomac. It is a loss for CEI, but an exciting professional opportunity for a talented colleague. Greg has produced a large body of important work on topics including agriculture, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals, and been instrumental in the development of many talented writers and analysts. Most important to me, he has been a friend and a man of genuine integrity.

Greg’s career turn has taken him to the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he is now Deputy Director of the Law & Economics Center and serves on the faculty. It puts him on the front lines at a strong institution, where he’ll be able to realize a longtime goal – teaching. Greg’s departure calls to mind a wonderful passage from the papers of Albert Einstein:

Knowledge exists in two forms – lifeless, stored in books, and alive in the consciousness of men. The second form of existence is after all the essential one; the first, indispensable as it may be, occupies only an inferior position.

Greg’s passion for the principles of a free society and his deep understanding of how our system of government really works certainly constitute knowledge of the essential variety. With him as a teacher and mentor, the development of the next generation of happy warriors is in good hands.