Meet Rob

Fetzer Institute President Emeritus Rob Lehman chaired Fetzer’s board for 17 years and served as president from 1989 to 2000. Under his leadership as president, the Institute contributed to the development and mainstreaming of the fields of mind-body-spirit health, social and emotional learning, contemplative practice, and scientific research on love and forgiveness, in furtherance of the common work of integrating the inner life of mind and spirit with the outer life of service and action. 

During this time, Fetzer also built the Institute’s retreat center, Seasons, as a dialogic convening space and GilChrist as its public contemplative retreat center. As board chair, Rob helped to establish a deeply engaged model of governance and to articulate the Institute’s current mission of helping build the spiritual foundation for a loving world.

Before joining the Fetzer Institute, Rob was vice president of the Kettering Foundation. Before his work with foundations, he was associate dean and professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. He holds a law degree and a master’s degree in theology. 

On his work with private foundations for 50 years, Rob says, “It is a rare privilege to be part of organizations that are serving a larger cultural story of hope unfolding in the world.”