Ronald Gibbs

Ron Gibbs is President of National and International Public Affairs Consulting (NIPAC). He provides strategic counsel to businesses, governmental entities and non-profit organizations on public policy, legislative affairs, marketing/branding, fund raising, communications, and corporate social responsibility issues. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy, where he teaches political feasibility analysis and conducts seminars for corporate and non-profit executives on developing winning public policy strategies.

Ron is a nationally recognized expert in public policy, strategic planning and coalition building. His track record includes developing and implementing successful national public affairs and public relations campaigns. He has provided effective leadership in numerous public policy areas dealing with urban and rural affairs, child welfare, health care, hunger relief, diabetes education, transportation, environment, veteran's affairs, immigration, global poverty, farm bill reform and renewable energy, among others.

He has worked in high level executive positions for Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the National Association of Counties in D.C. He was selected as a Congressional Fellow to work in the U.S. House and Senate as a legislative assistant. He was a senior executive for major non-profit organizations including Feeding America and for UNICEF. He established the Kim Foundation to help child victims of war, which is chaired by Kim Phuc, whose Pulitzer Prize winning photo was captured by Nick Ut as her village was napalmed during the Vietnam War.

Ron was a senior vice president for public affairs at Edelman Worldwide and Fleishman-Hillard, two world class public relations firms, where he worked with major corporations and non-profit organizations. He was a candidate for the Illinois State Senate and for the U.S. Senate from Illinois. Ron has been nationally recognized for his work in building a national coalition and spearheading the passage of the legislation that established the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, the most visited memorial in our nation's Capitol. As Jan Scruggs stated in his book, To Heal A Nation, "Ron spent many hours walking the halls of Congress. He never asked for public recognition or acclaim. His only desire was to see the 58,000 names of those soldiers killed inscribed in a place of honor." He served as an Army Infantry Captain in Vietnam and Germany.

He received a Master's Degree from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government and BA in Political Science from Drake University. He has studied at The Hague Academy of International Law, London School of Economics and Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies. He can be reached at rgibbs@uchicago.eduor 312-543-1455.