Bob's enthusiastic and professional promotion of causes of liberty made it a pleasure for me to support Free To Choose.

I worked with Bob at WQLN for nine years.  Bob was a dreamer and a Bohemian at heart.  I, being the Vice-President of Engineering, tended to be more practical with both feet on the ground.  Because of our different outlooks on life, we didn’t always agree on the future path for WQLN.  But, I always knew he had a gift I didn’t have – the ability to talk and convince people to his way of thinking. 

I would like to share a couple of my anecdotes about my time with Bob: 

It was late in the day and time for me to leave for home.  I got a message that Bob wanted me to come to the FM studio.  I went in with my rain coat on, ready to go out the door.  Unbeknownst to me, he had a Board of Directors meeting in progress and he wanted me to explain something to them regarding a technical matter (I don’t remember what the subject was).  The explanation was long and complicated.  As I went through the subject, I didn’t realize that I was shining an apple in my raincoat pocket someone had given me, shortly before I entered the meeting.  Apparently I was rubbing the apple up and down throughout my dissertation.  After I was done with my explanation Bob simply said “I hope you have something in your pocket”.  I now realized what I was doing and pulled the apple out of my pocket…..“just shinning my apple”.  Bob said “thank God”!  The Board roared with laughter.

We had ongoing discussions regarding art.  He, being the Bohemian at heart, loved modern art.  I, on the other hand being technical in nature, liked classic art – where you could tell the quality of the artist technique by simply looking at the picture.  You didn’t have to analyze the picture to see what the artist was trying to portray.  One of our many discussions on the subject took place at a WQLN retreat for the department heads, at a hunting camp in Potter County (in the middle of nowhere).  We were setting around a table discussing the direction of WQLN and the topic somehow turned to art.  Bob and I got into art again and literally forgot about the others in the room.  It ended when I asked Bob to give me some metric, some ruler, that I can use to determine if a piece of modern art is good.  (I had heard that one painting that won great acclamation was done by a chimp).  When he couldn’t give me a concrete means to measure the quality, we gave up the discussion.  We looked around the room and half of the others had drifted off to sleep.  We called it a night.

I wish Carol and family my deepest sympathies for their loss and that he has been and will continue to be in my prayers.

Don Hain   

I had the pleasure of having Bob on a panel I hosted at a conference some years ago. Sadly, the audio and acoustics were so bad I had to struggle to understand what most panelists were saying at any point. So I kept coming back to Bob because I knew he could summarize whatever the issue was clearly and well. RIP.

I didn't ever have the privilege of meeting Bob, but I greatly admired and respected the work of the Free to Choose Network.  I did have the privilege of meeting and getting to know both Milton and Rose Friedman, and Bob did a terrific job promoting the truths which they both wrote and spoke about.  He will be greatly missed.

Working for Bob was one of the most enjoyable periods in my life, and having him in the office was always great: He was always friendly, engaging, and genuinely interested in his employees. We disagreed politically on almost everything, but he was always willing to hear my point-of-view, explain something I didn't understand, or just chat. He was a great guy, and the world's a little worse for not having him.

Bob taught me that it was not only possible but desirable to be a rogue in the service of human freedom. Working for Bob could be maddening at times, but that's only because one had to accept working for someone who was prepared to take chances and to go against the grain. Traditional politics, policy, and punditry weren't really working and Bob knew it. Those of us on a less-traveled road today have Bob Chitester to thank for showing the way. He is, and will always be, an inspiration to so many of us who refused to get sucked into the institutional matrix. Those who follow their hearts into novelty will blaze new trails as Bob did. Bob is in many respects the father of trailblazers in this sort of media.

(Bob, your big personality, your poetry, and your zany ideas will live on in us. We will make every effort to make you proud.)

It's been 14 years since I first encountered Bob Chitester on a conference call.  I think initially he may have been skeptical about what support my small company could provide his 2007 PBS series The Power of Choice. But ever the visionary, Bob took a chance and I'm eternally grateful to have been included in his sphere of influence for these many years.  If I had to think of one thing for me that represents the spirit of Bob, it would be a light house.  He was that tower of light and focus for those of us who had to bring his projects into safe harbor.   Thank you Bob and Thank you to Bob's family for sharing him so generously with all of us. 

THANKS TO LARRY REED I MET BOB BY E-MAIL AND HE HELP US WITH SOME IDEAS AND METERIAL IN ORDER TO PROMOTE LIBERTY IDEAS. BUT THE BIGEST IMPACT IN OUR LIFE AS PERSONS AND AS THE ORGANIZATION CAME FRON THE FREE TO CHOOSE SERIES. A VISIONARY WAY TO COMUNICATE IDEAS!

Bob Chitester was a brilliant communicator and a tireless champion of freedom.  It was easy to make Milton Friedman smile, but I saw Bob Chitester make him laugh!

I spoke to him briefly once and saw him at a couple of free market events. I was struck by his intensity. By getting "Free to Choose" on TV, which became a best-selling book, he changed my life for the better, and those of countless others.