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The
Discussion
Club

MR. DAVID ROSE
President and Board Member

Dave Rose is Professor of Economics and Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He has also served as the department’s Director of Graduate Studies. He earned his B.S. in Economics at Missouri State University and he earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Virginia in 1987. He has published numerous scholarly articles in labor economics, industrial organization, monetary theory, institutional economics, and microeconomic theory. He teaches microeconomic theory and mathematical economics. He is currently working on a book titled “The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior.” He has also been heavily involved in school reform at the K-12 level.

MR. JOHN SCHAEFFER SHIELDS
Board Member

John Schaeffer Shields is Chairman of Schaeffer Mfg. Company, the oldest family owned company in the State of Missouri. Started in 1839 by his great grandfather, Nicholas Schaeffer, they are 167 years old and six generations. Schaeffer is the largest value added specialized lubricant firm in the U.S. It has over the road trucks going 50,000 miles without an oil change and dozens of trucks going over one million miles without a major overhaul. Schaeffer has 435 direct sales associates throughout the U.S. and World Wide.

MR. MENLO SMITH
Board Member

Menlo Smith is CEO of Sunmark Capital Corp, headquartered in St. Louis. Previously he served as Chairman and CEO of the Sunmark Companies, known for inventing and marketing popular candies and snacks such as SweeTARTS, Pixy Stix, Tangy Taffy, Nerds, the Willy Wonka brands, and David's Sunflower Seeds. Smith serves as chairman of the executive committee of Enterprise Mentors International, a non-profit group he co-founded to assist impoverished micro-entrepreneurs in the Third World achieve self-sufficiency through training, mentoring and micro credit. He serves on the board of the directors of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

MRS. MARYANN ROBER
Board Member

MR. CARL STIFEL
Board Member

HENRY F. (Harry) LANGENBERG

The Discussion Club was established with its first meeting in September of 1955. One of its principal founders was Henry F. (Harry) Langenberg. With only a few exceptions, Harry Langenberg was president of the club until he died 50 years after co-founding the club. No discussion of Who We Are would be complete without a tribute to Harry.

Harry Langenberg was by any account a remarkable man. As a young man he met Leonard Read, who impressed upon Harry the close connection between freedom and the functioning of a market economy. Harry later earned a degree in Economics from Princeton.

Harry had a deep intellectual streak. He was a voracious reader of social, political, and economic theory as well as of philosophy. He was a friend to some of the greatest minds of the 20th century and was a long time member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He was from a leading St. Louis family and was sought by many of the most prominent citizens of St. Louis for investment advice. Being quite an athlete, he was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame for establishing rugby here (he played into his 70s).

Harry had a deep commitment to economic education. He was a long time supporter of The Foundation for Economic Education as well as the economic education outreach efforts of other organizations. At the University of Missouri-St. Louis, he established the Hayek Professorship of Economic History. This chair is currenlty filled by Lawrence H. White, a highly respected monetary economist and economic historian in the Austrian tradition.

Harry was a man of great warmth and charm. He especially liked to get people together to have a good time. Given his intellectual nature and deep convictions about the importance of freedom and liberty, it was only natural that Harry would create a social organization to discuss the most important issues of our day.

We all miss Harry very much. He was a great man and the club will strive to honor his memory by upholding his principles.

MRS. MARY ANN JOZWIAK
Office Manager