Kenneth Cribb, Jr. is a native of South Carolina. He received a B.A. from Washington and Lee University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He also has honorary doctorate degrees from Thomas Moore University, Oklahoma Christian University, and Universidad Francisco Marroquín.
Mr. Cribb was deputy to the chief counsel of the 1980 Reagan campaign. During the Reagan transition, he was deputy director of the Legal and Administrative Agencies Group, Office of the Executive Branch Management. He went on to serve the Reagan administration for almost the entire eight years of its existence, beginning in 1981 as assistant director for the Office of Cabinet Affairs.
He served next as assistant counselor to the President, in which capacity he assisted Counselor Edwin Meese. When Mr. Meese became attorney general, Mr. Cribb accompanied him to the Justice Department where he became counselor to the attorney general of the United States. In 1987, Mr. Cribb returned to the White House as assistant to the President for domestic affairs, serving as President Reagan’s top advisor on domestic matters, supervising four White House offices: policy development, cabinet affairs, public liaison, and welfare reform. He served in this position until the fall of 1988.
Other Presidential appointments include vice chairman of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship board from 1989 to 1992, governor of the American Red Cross, and councilor of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
He has served in many other leadership positions over the years. From 1971 to 1977, Cribb served as national director for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). He became president of ISI and served from 1989 to 2011. He was also the founding publisher of ISI Books. Mr. Cribb retains the title of president emeritus of ISI.
He is the past president of the Collegiate Network, the Council for National Policy, and the Philadelphia Society and a former senior fellow of the Heritage Foundation.
Mr. Cribb has received numerous awards, including the Edmund Randolph Award, the highest honor given by the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Charles H. Hoeflich Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor rarely awarded by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
Currently, Cribb is a trustee and counselor to the Federalist Society, chairman of the board of trustees for the Brevard Music Center, chairman of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, and a trustee of the Sarah Scaife Foundation. He also serves on Young America’s Foundation’s Board of Directors as treasurer and as the chairman of YAF’s National Journalism Center Board of Governors.
