Robert Hackett is the President of the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation. Bobby joined the Bonner Foundation in 1992 as Vice President and Director of the Bonner Scholars Program and assumed the role of President in July 2010.
With his friend Wayne Meisel, Bobby helped start Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL) in 1984, serving as its managing director of the during its first three years of operation. COOL organized initiatives that promoted the development of the national service movement and the role of students as leaders within it.
In addition, Bobby worked in various capacities with the Youth Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based non-partisan organization that researches and reports on public policies and evidence-based program models on social issues. Bobby received his bachelors degree from Harvard University in 1985 and a masters in public and private management from Yale University's School of Organization and Management in 1990.
Prior to joining the Bonner Foundation, Bobby worked at the Telesis Corporation, an affordable housing developer in Washington, D.C.
Bobby oversaw the Foundation’s work, funded by Learn & Serve America, to seed community-based research at more than 30 colleges and universities and efforts, funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service, to replicate the Bonner Scholar Program model using AmeriCorps Education Awards.
Bobby has worked over the past decade to integrate social action into Bonner’s work, by sharing Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton's successful course model with faculty from around the country.