Attorney Robert Heist earned his JD from The University of Illinois-John Marshall Law School. He also holds an MBA from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Since 2001, he has served as the president and principal attorney of R. Connor & Associates, a business law firm with offices in Chicago, Illinois, and Boston, Massachusetts. A graduate of the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Robert Heist is also the Past-Chairman of the Board of Managers of the Milton Hershey School and Past-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hershey Trust Company where he was responsible for leading the new Early Childhood Education initiative at Milton Hershey School.
After his wife died in 1915, Mr. Hershey gave his entire fortune of $60 million in land and the chocolate company to the school - the equivalent of more than $1 billion today. Today, the Milton Hershey School serves more than 2,000 students in grades 1-12 who live in student homes of a dozen or so children under the supervision of resident married houseparents. More information is available at www.mhskids.org.