Helping young leaders learn how to think, not what to think.

For nearly four decades, the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) program has worked diligently at helping young people make a difference and become positive catalysts for change in the home, in the school, in the workplace, and in the community. As one of the nation's foremost nonprofit, non-tax supported youth leadership development organizations, HOBY is respected worldwide.

Mission of the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership

The mission of Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership, founded in 1958, is to seek out, recognize, and reward leadership potential in promising high school sophomores.

To give young leaders a better understanding and appreciation of America's economic system, our democratic process, and to encourage their active participation in designing their world of tomorrow.
To encourage and assist members of this formative age group in their quest for self-identification and self-development.
To stimulate opportunities for these young people to demonstrate their leadership abilities.
To enhance learning and understanding.
To provide face-to-face interaction with distinguished leaders in business, industry, education, science and government to the end that they will better understand the American Incentive System; our democratic process and the need to seek out and make informed judgments based on facts.
To focus on the prevailing social, economic and political realities that they will have in their future.
To foster greater understanding of the American Incentive System among youth of other countries.
To activate the concept of world peace through greater understanding on the part of the youth of the world through interaction with youth of other countries.

What are the Benefits to Students?

The HOBY experience benefits participating sophomores through their involvement in the Seminar weekend by providing the following opportunities:

To learn to assimilate information secured from panelists and to transfer it from student to student through discussion and debate.
To discover through the process of critical analysis that there are at least two sides to every question and that a good leader examines all opinions before making decisions.
To come to an understanding that they possess special traits, skills and leadership instincts that can make a difference in their lives and the lives of others.
To discover that the HOBY experience can provide the "will and skill" to undertake leadership roles in the students' respective schools and communities with confidence and enthusiasm.
To meet and interact with other highly able and motivated high school sophomores.

Participants in HOBY Seminars are called "Ambassadors" because they are charged with the responsibility of bringing back to their high school peers their enhanced understanding of our American economic system of opportunity and the competence of leadership.

Results!

The effectiveness of give-and-take workshops is evidenced by a survey of HOBY alumni:

100% of HOBY alumni have gone on to graduate High School.
98% reported that as a result of HOBY, they know what steps to take to be a better leader.
98% reported that because of HOBY, the had better understanding of the importance of volunteering and 96% stated that because of HOBY, they were more likely to serve in a volunteer organization.
98% said that HOBY encouraged them to think independently.
98% believed they could make a difference in their communities and many of the participants set goals related to community volunteerism at the conclusion of the seminar.
93% of all alumni are more willing to make decisions and be responsible for the effects of those decisions;
98.9% began to think about their new career possibilities;
71% have received awards for school or community services
70% are interested in careers in business and industry, law, health and sciences.

How are students selected?

Each September, the Foundation's selection process begins when the nomination materials are sent to 20,000 public and private high schools in the United States. All 10th graders are eligible for selection to attend one of three or four-day weekend seminars held each spring/summer in all 50 states, Ontario Canada, and Mexico. A sophomore leader is nominated by each school and is certified by the principal. From each HOBY Leadership Seminar, certain ambassadors are selected to represent their seminar at a week-long World Leadership Congress held in the late summer. In addition, HOBY invites young leaders from at least 30 countries to attend.

The HOBY Story

Beginnings in an African Jungle

Actor Hugh O'Brian is probably most readily recognized for his television portrayal of frontier lawman Wyatt Earp. In the summer of 1958, O'Brian received the invitation that would change his life. O'Brian, then 33, was in Winnipeg, Manitoba when a cable arrived from French Equatorial Africa: Dr. Albert Schweitzer would welcome him at any time. O'Brian had long admired the German doctor-missionary-theologian-musician. "I'd read so much about him," he reflects. "He was a great humanitarian who could have done anything he wanted in the world, and there he was in the middle of Africa taking care of people."

Within two weeks he was on his way, by commercial airliner, bush plane and canoe, to the famed hospital that Schweitzer had founded in 1913 on the banks of the Ogooue River in Lambarene. There he was met by a very old man with a huge, white walrus mustache, wearing white pants, shirt and pith helmet. "That was his uniform," says O'Brian, recalling his first sighting of Schweitzer.

The actor spent nine days at the clinic complex where Schweitzer and volunteer doctors and nurses, working without electricity or running water, cared for patients, including many with leprosy.

Schweitzer, then 83, who had received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in behalf of the "Brotherhood of Nations," was concerned about global peace prospects and was impressed that the young American had taken the trouble to visit him. The doctor led the actor through history over those evenings. Schweitzer was convinced that the United States was the only country in the world with the ability to bring about peace.

"He said the United States must take a leadership role," O'Brian recounts, "or we are a lost civilization"

It was an unforgettable nine days. And, as O’Brian departed, Schweitzer took his hand and asked: "Hugh, what are you going to do with this?" Two weeks alter returning from his 1958 meeting with Schweitzer, O’Brian put together a prototype seminar for young leaders.

50 Years Later...

From 1958 to 1967, leadership seminars took place in Los Angeles for sophomores from California. In 1968 the scope of the HOBY program grew to include national and international participants, and the seminar moved annually to different major cities across the United States. Thus, the International Leadership Seminars, now known as the World Leadership Congress (WLC), began. In an effort to include more students nationwide, three-day HOBY Leadership Seminars were instituted in 1977 in which high schools throughout the country may nominate a sophomore to attend a HOBY seminar in their state.

Annually, more than 14,000 tenth graders representing as many high schools nationwide graduate from HOBY Leadership Seminars.

In 1991, HOBY added one-day leadership seminars called Community Leadership Workshops (CLEWs). These workshops have become popular because schools may nominate multiple numbers of students.