BOB CHITESTER
Executive Producer

Bob Chitester is founder and president of Free To Choose Network and its production and educational initiatives Free To Choose Media and izzit.org.  With more than 40 years of experience creating programs and series for public television and as president of the Erie public television station WQLN, Bob Chitester continues to be creatively involved in the creation of programs and series for Free To Choose Media and izzit.org. 

In partnership with his colleague Tom Skinner (senior executive producer at Free To Choose Media) Bob has served as executive producer for The Power of Choice: the Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman (on PBS), The Ultimate Resource (American Public Television), The Power of the Poor (PBS), Globalization at the Crossroads with Hernando de Soto, and Turmoil and Triumph: The George Shultz Years, a three-part documentary series for PBS.

In 1980 Bob Chitester brought Milton Friedman to public television and was responsible as executive producer for Friedman’s landmark PBS series Free To Choose and the best-selling book that emanated from the series. Free or Equal, hosted by Swedish author Johan Norberg, is his latest production — re-examining the impact of Free To Choose more than thirty years later.

Bob Chitester holds BA and MA degrees from The University of Michigan and has received an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Allegheny College.

On the personal level, he pursues physical fitness (running, swimming and biking), indulges in wood and clay sculpture, reads poetry publicly, is a hunter and cuts several cord of fire wood each year, when he is not flying about in airplanes as part of his responsibilities at Free To Choose Network.  Bob and his wife, Carol, have 4 children and 8 grandchildren, one of whom they are raising in their home.

LARRY SIMMONS
Producer / Art Director

Larry Simmons is president of Core Creative, Inc., an advertising agency located in Erie, Pennsylvania. He attended Mercyhurst College and Columbus College of Art and Design. He has a fine arts degree with an emphasis on CommDesign. He started his career as an art director for WSEE, the CBS affiliate in Erie. After stints in corporate communications and as art director for an advertising agency in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Larry returned to Erie to start Core Creative. His clients are industrial, consumer, educational and broadcast. Through Core, he has worked as art director for nationally-produced television programs and series. He was the art director for a weekly animated series, and produced an hour-long program for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.