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Center for the American Idea - Staff
W. Winston Elliott, III is President of the Free Enterprise Institute. The Free Enterprise Institute is dedicated to promoting the ideals of a free and virtuous society by teaching the principles of free markets, limited government, the Christian roots of the American founding and an enduring moral order. It accomplishes this mission through seminars and educational programs for teachers. Additionally, he serves as a member of the Institute’s Board of Trustees. Before joining the Institute as President in 1992, Mr. Elliott had served on the Institute’s Board of Advisory Trustees since 1984.
As president of the Free Enterprise Institute and the founder of the Center for the American Idea, a program of FEI, Mr. Elliott has for fifteen years directed graduate seminars for teachers, for which they receive graduate credit awarded by the University of St. Thomas. Topics include American history, world history, government, economics, literature, foreign affairs, and philosophy.
The Center for the American Idea provides academic content in an interdisciplinary format, lectures, and classroom resources for teachers, enabling them to better educate their students in the principles of Western civilization. More than 4000 teachers from public and parochial schools representing 41 states and four foreign nations have attended American Idea Seminars and Workshops.
In 1983, Mr. Elliott founded Elliott and Craft Corporation. He served as President of this computer services company until it was sold in 1991. At the time of sale, the company had annualized revenue of 12 million dollars and forty employees.
Mr. Elliott was born in Salisbury, Maryland. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Washington College in 1982. In 1991, he was awarded a Masters of Business Administration, with Honors, from the University of Houston. In 1994 he was named Adjunct Professor of Business and Public Policy with Northwood University in Midland, Michigan, where he taught economics and public policy from 1993 until 1997. He is currently completing a Master’s degree in theology at the University of St. Thomas School of Theology in Houston.
Mr. Elliott is a parishioner of Our Lady of Walsingham Roman Catholic Church where he has served as Parochial Master of Ceremonies and as the Grand Knight of the Our Lady of Walsingham Council of the Knights of Columbus.
Mr. Elliott is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees of the Philadelphia Society, an academic association devoted to the preservation of the ideals of the Founding Fathers. Mr. Elliott is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma (National Scholastic Honorary Society for Business and Management), a member of Omicron Delta Kappa (National Scholastic and Leadership Honorary Society), and a member of Phi Alpha Theta (National Scholastic Honorary Society for History).
Since 1995 Liberty Fund has selected him for participation in seven of their post-graduate colloquia: “Liberty, Free Markets and the Role of Government,” in Victoria, Canada; “American Political Literature,” in Big Sky, Montana; “American Founding Documents and Colonial Political Writing,” in St. Louis; “The Political Writing of T.H. Green,” in Indianapolis; “Liberty and Responsibility during the 1920’s” in Key West; “Edmund Burke and Liberty,” and “Liberty and Responsibility in the Gilded Age, 1865-1900”, both in San Antonio; “Socratic Seminar for Liberty Fund Discussion Leaders” in Indianapolis.
Mr. Elliott is married to the author Barbara J. Elliott (Street Saints, Candles Behind the Wall) who is the founder and President of the Center for Renewal in Houston. Together, they have four children, ages eighteen through twenty-three.