Bob Fox

CHAIR / CO-FOUNDER THE CLARK-FOX FAMILY FOUNDATION at 501C-3

A native of St. Louis, Bob served in The United States Air Force from 1962 to 1966. He graduated with a B.S. in Business and Economics from the Breech School of Business at Drury University in 1968 and received his MBA from the Chaifetz School of Business at Saint Louis University in 1976. Bob served on the Board of Trustees of Saint Louis University from 2006 to 2022. In 1984 Bob founded NewSpace, Inc. a residential, commercial and store fixture company that he sold to his employees and an outside investor in 2017 after 33 years of successful operation.

Bob’s wife, Maxine Clark, founded Build-a-Bear Workshops in 1997 which became a publicly traded company on the NY Stock Exchange in 2004 and served as its President and CEB (Chief Executive Bear) until she retired in 2013. In 2004 Bob and Maxine established the Clark-Fox Family Foundation with a focus on St. Louis regional growth and prosperity by engaging with and supporting marginalized populations. It is a 501C-3 with key programs including BluePrint4Summer, Regional Resource Mapping and their Mass Incarceration Community Education Initiative.

Bob and Maxine are among the founding sponsors of Teach For America and KIPP Charter Schools in St. Louis. In 2006, they funded a Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, endowed the Chair of the President/CEO of Goldfarb School of Nursing and established a professorship in the name of Raymond and Alberta Slavin at Saint Louis University. In 2015, they founded the Clark-Fox Policy Institute and Forum at the Brown School of Social Work and Public Health at Washington University.

Bob and Maxine received the 2011 Jane and Whitney Harris Community Service Award given annually to couples in the community who, through their public service, have greatly enhanced the St. Louis region. They were also honored with the 2013 NCCJ Brotherhood/Sisterhood Award, the 2013 One Hundred Black Men Educational Award, the 2014 Saint Louis University Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Leadership Award and the 2015 Better Family Life Civic/Community Award. In 2016, they received the Spirit of Philanthropy Award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals in St. Louis.

Bob is the Founder and Past Chair of the Board of Casa de Salud, a not-for-profit health and wellness center that welcomes new immigrants out of isolation and into the embrace of the community. It opened its doors in January of 2010, and today serves more than 14,000 patient visits annually providing both physical and mental health service to under-insured immigrants from over 86 countries.

In 2011 Bob served on the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Taskforce on Immigration for the Midwest. In 2012, he founded the St. Louis Regional Taskforce on Immigration and Innovation at the World Trade Center of the Joint Economic Partnership of St. Louis City and County which in 2013 launched The St. Louis Mosaic Project at 501C3. Its mission is to attract and retain foreign individuals and families to live, work and thrive in the St. Louis region.

Bob is the Founding Chair of the Board of inspireSTL at 501C3 a not-for-profit educational initiative started in 2011. inspireSTL identifies bright, motivated, socio-economically challenged, middle school students in urban underperforming schools, helps them with academic preparation and access to the finest college prep high schools in the region, tutors, and mentors them through high school and college with the goal of developing them into transformational community leaders.

He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Advisory Board for Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience (CSMB), a magnet high school in the St. Louis Public School District.  In 2023 CSMB was ranked the 2^nd best high school in the state of Missouri by US News and World Report.

In 2006 Bob was a founding member of the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement at Washington University where he served continuously until becoming an emeritus member in 2023. In 2015 Bob launched the Clark-Fox Family Foundation’s Mass Incarceration Community Education Initiative which has presented its findings to over 7,000 community, regional and statewide officials with a focus on reducing mass incarceration and its negative impact on society.

Bob received the inaugural St. Louis Harvard Club Community Service Award in 2010. In 2011, he received the Hispanic Leaders Group Premio Esperanza Award and the St. Louis Award given to “the resident of metropolitan St. Louis who has contributed the most outstanding services for its development or… shall have performed such services as to bring great honor to the community.” In 2012, he received the St. Louis World Trade Center’s Global Ambassador Award and was inducted into the John Cook School of Business at Saint Louis University Smurfit-Stone Entrepreneurial Alumni Hall of Fame. In 2014, he received the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. State Celebration Commission of Missouri Distinguished Humanitarian Award. Bob is the recipient of the 2015 Gerry and Bob Virgil Ethics of Service Award at Washington University, and the Niagara Foundation 2015 Peace and Dialogue Commitment Award. In 2019 Bob was the recipient of the Focus St. Lous What is Right with the Region Leadership Award, and in 2022 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Cultural Leadership. In October 2023 Bob was inducted into the Drury University Breech School of Business Hall of Fame.