Ronald Weiser
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, Trustee
TERM AS TRUSTEE:
June 11, 2007 through Present
BIOGRAPHY:
Ambassador Ron Weiser was elected to the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan (UM) in 2016 and currently serves as its chair. Ron Weiser founded McKinley Associates Inc., a national real estate investment company, in 1968 and was its chairman and chief executive officer until 2001. From 2001-05 under President George W. Bush, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Slovak Republic.
Regent Weiser served on the board of directors of numerous non-profit organizations, including the national board of the Ginsberg Center at UM, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the UNCF of Washtenaw County, the Michigan Theater, Artrain USA, and The Henry Ford Museum. He served on the advisory boards of the Zell Lurie Institute in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the University’s Food Allergy Center. In 1984, together with his wife, Eileen, he created the McKinley Foundation, a public community foundation that built Ann Arbor’s NEW Center. He and his wife also founded two educational institutes at UM: the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies and the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia, and established the Weiser Diplomacy Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. They also served as deputy chairs of the University’s Victors for Michigan Campaign.
He currently is a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and The Henry Ford, a member of the endowment committee of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the chair of an effort to raise resources for a pediatric brain cancer research initiative at the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in honor of the late Chad Carr.
He was born in South Bend, Indiana and graduated with honors in 1966 from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He also did post-graduate work at the University’s Business and Law Schools. He and his wife Eileen have three children and five grandchildren.
On May 3, 2011 Ambassador Ron Weiser joined fellow Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation Trustees at the unveiling of the statute of President Ford in the Capitol Rotunda. Washington, D.C. (Photo Courtesy of Dr. Robert M. Humphries)
