Prof launched Free Market U

When he became the first economics professor at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers 19 years ago, Bradley Hobbs was on a mission to create a department that would be a bastion of free market principles.

With required reading such as “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand and classes such as the Moral Foundations of Capitalism, FGCU became known as one of the few universities that encouraged learning and research of the benefits of free market capitalism. The economics department garnered national recognition for its curriculum from publications such as Forbes under his watch, and Hobbs was named the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise.

Now Hobbs is moving on. He accepted a newly created position at Clemson University to develop economic education as professor of economics. “I write to you with both great excitement and a sense of deep and impending loss,” Hobbs wrote in a message to colleagues.