IRVINGTON-ON-HUDSON, NY – Last summer I heard Larry Reed, now president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), give an outstanding presentation at the Liberty Summer Seminar. This past spring when I hit the road with MHD I knew that he was someone I wanted to sit-down with and hopefully help introduce to more people. Also because I wanted to try to pick up some of his stellar communication techniques.

That’s why, a  couple of weeks back when I was hammering out our itinerary for the next few months, I penciled in a stop in Midland, MI, where Larry lives. Yet, I soon learned that when MHD could be in the area he’d be out of town. But he offered another opportunity – to meet on July 18th in Irvington-on-Husdon, NY, where FEE’s headquarters are located. This we could do.

In the video below Larry details his personal journey to the ideas of liberty and discusses the exciting direction he plans to take FEE.

We had planned on interviewing Steve Horwitz, a very thorough and personable Austrian economist who teaches at St. Lawrence University, in northern NY before we crossed into Canada. But as with Reed, when we could be in his area he would be gone. Only then did we realize where exactly he’d be: at FEE presenting for Evenings at FEE, a program that features a scholar who lectures on a timely topic, which is attended by FEE supporters and area residents (though one guy I spoke with did drive six hours each way) interested in the ideas of liberty. Steve’s thought-provoking speech, “The Great Recession of 2008-2009″ can be listened to in its entirety here.

Also, thanks to the work of Larry, Lee Currie, FEE’s executive director and Michael Nolan, managing editor of the Freeman, we were able to loop in Wayne Olson, chairman of FEE’s Board of Trustees, who gave us an informative overview of FEE’s facilities and its history.

For more, check out the photo album on our Facebook Fan Page entitled “MHD at FEE”, which includes a couple of shots of Jason and I playing chess on Henry Hazlitt’s chessboard and pics during Steve’s lecture, of the FEE mansion and of MARV.

A huge thanks to Larry, Lee, Michael, Keir Ketel, who’s interning at FEE this summer and everyone else for making our visit so plesant. We rolled in on Thursday around lunch and were set-up with rooms on-site and workspaces so that we could continue to crank out MHD-related content and I was able to get a few workouts in using the equipment in the carriage house. Also, we were given five minutes to address those assembled to hear Steve’s lecture, which definitely helped get MHD on the radars of more folks and which resulted in a few donations to help keep us rolling.