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In Memory of Our Founder, Dr. Robert Cluett (1932-2026)

It is with deepest sadness that we announce the passing of our esteemed Founder, Dr. Robert Cluett. On this occasion, the entire Loran community is reflecting on Bob’s broad and lasting contributions to Canada’s leadership ecosystem with profound gratitude.

In 1989, Dr. Robert Cluett took early retirement from his role as Chair of York University’s Graduate English department to become the founding Chairman and CEO of the Loran Scholars Foundation (then known as the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation). Over the subsequent three decades, Bob’s unconventional philosophy of looking beyond grades to identify individuals with a unique strength of character, which he believed was a better marker of future potential, has had a transformative impact on the lives of thousands of young Canadians.

During his time as a university professor at York University, Bob grew concerned watching that many talented young Canadians were being attracted to the States for post-secondary. He became determined to create a scholarship that would incentivize Canadians to study on Canadian university campuses. Furthermore, Bob recognized a significant gap in the Canadian system of financial assistance for university students (such funding tended to be directed to only two groups: those with exceptionally high academic averages and those with phenomenal athletic abilities).

Bob was committed, instead, to actively seeking out and providing financial support and mentorship to exceptional young Canadians who showed strength of character, the drive to leave their communities better than they found them, and sparks of exceptional leadership potential. An early proponent of merit-based selection, Bob believed that character is demonstrated by what students do with the opportunities they are given—within the context of their backgrounds and upbringings. He insisted that “breadth, openness to challenge, and willingness to take risk are many times more important than any quantitative measure of promise.” This created an opportunity for students from all regions and socio-economic statuses across Canada.

Loran became the country’s first national organization of its kind. Bob built the Foundation on a vision that was unique, ambitious, and optimistic: to find, equip, and empower Canada’s next generation of young people who are driven by integrity, curiosity, courage, grit, and a high level of inner-directedness. Bob believed that Canada would prosper if we ensured that these high-potential students were given the opportunity to imagine, explore, and create the future.

Founded in 1988, Bob brought his vision to life through an ambitious and deeply collaborative community project: he rallied a small group of committed trustees (David Bell, David Crombie OC, Doug Grant, Kim Echlin, Dick Helmstadter, Karen McCrae, Mary Turner, Frank Vasilkioti, and Karen Wilson) to help build something entirely new. Together, they pioneered an innovative co-investment model: securing commitments from five founding university partners – McMaster, McGill, the University of Toronto, Waterloo, and York – to leverage donor contributions by providing matching tuition waivers for Loran Scholars.

“Bob Cluett built something that is genuinely rare: a vision compelling enough that an entire community of volunteers, donors, universities, and young people has chosen to protect and carry forward for nearly four decades. He believed that character was the truest measure of young people’s potential, and he never wavered from that conviction. His legacy is not a plaque on a wall. It is the 800-plus Loran Scholars who are quietly and steadily helping make this country better. The Loran Scholars Foundation is his gift to Canada, and on behalf of the Board, I am deeply grateful for everything he has given us.”

– Mike Johnson, Board Chair; President & CEO at REDspace

This approach effectively doubled the impact of donors’ contributions and ensured the program could be both generous and sustainable from the outset. Supported by volunteers and donors, Bob designed an award that would combine financial support with a breadth of developmental opportunities, enabling scholars to study in Canada while preparing to reinvest their talents in tackling the country’s most complex challenges.

Bob retired from hands-on service at the Foundation in 2001, but acted as National Co-Chair of Interviews from 2002 to 2010 and continued to serve as a formal and informal mentor to countless scholars, and as a member of Loran’s Honorary Council, providing wise counsel and guidance as Loran continued to grow and evolve for 37 years after his founding.

He remained a donor and Cornerstone Benefactor to the endowment fund to the end of his life. Through his lifelong efforts to find, nurture, and retain leaders of integrity, Bob supported over three decades of compassionate, ethical, respectful, courageous, and determined leaders – comprising a network of over 800 scholars and alumni – who are now shaping the landscapes of their diverse fields and building bridges that unite all Canadian citizens in the dream of a brighter and more just tomorrow.

Over the past 37 years, the Loran Scholars Foundation has continued to be driven by Bob’s original vision and has raised over $87M in charitable contributions from individuals, families, foundations, and corporations from coast to coast to coast. These funds have made possible undergraduate awards for more than 3,600 promising high school and Cégep students, changing the trajectories of their lives.

We venture that there is no leader in education who has given more to generations of promising Canadian students than Bob. He described his years with the Loran Scholars Foundation as “the best thing that ever happened to [him] — a truly luminous and life-making experience.” We’re certain that all those whose lives Bob touched hold a similar impression of his meaningful impact on their journeys, and share in our feelings of appreciation and loss today.

Bob’s impact on the Loran community is best measured through the stories and connections he forged over the decades. We know that many of you carry personal memories of his mentorship, his wit, and his unwavering belief in the potential of young leaders.

If you wish to share a reflection, a note of condolence, or a favourite story, we welcome you to send these tributes to rememberingbob@loranscholar.ca. Your words will serve as a comfort to his family and a lasting testament to the legacy he leaves behind. If you would like your message to remain private and/or anonymous, please don’t hesitate to request that.

Bob’s family is holding a Celebration of Life on Sunday, June 7, from 1:00–3:00 p.m. in Highline Hall at the Wellington Community Centre (Arena building).

“Bob Cluett lived by the Quintilian’s standard that words should be few but grave. Whatever the length, his always were weighted, honest, exact. As Loran’s founding CEO, he built the foundation on a radical conviction: that character mattered more than achievement, that integrity and service were not footnotes to leadership but its whole substance. He was a brilliant coach – one who saw your potential before you did, elevated your game through exacting standards, and spoke truth in ways that stung precisely because they were so exactly right, sometimes through a story, or a metaphor that stayed with you for years. He leaves in Loran a lasting mission, but for those of us lucky enough to have been held in the light of his belief, an immense and lasting gratitude. I miss you already, Bob.”

Franca Gucciardi (’90)
Founding Alumna; Past CEO of the Loran Scholars Foundation

“Bob created CMSF/Loran by sheer will and energy, starting with what former board chair Grant Reuber called the best idea to come out of Canada’s universities in a generation, and enduring with a sound program design and relentless recruitment of a dedicated army of volunteers. Bob was great company because he had an informed view on everything from the soybean market to whether Willy Mays was better than Ty Cobb (he was!). Loran is based on Leadership, Character and Community Service: Bob embodied all three.”

Alan Broadbent
Honorary Council; Chair of Maytree; CEO Avana Capital

“Bob’s mentorship and friendship have been luminous and life-long. He championed my unconventional academic path and taught me to value character above all else. He brought people with a shared love for service together and our circles grew larger. With Bob, my friendship was a forty-five-year conversation about everything from baseball and wine to the study of formal rhetoric and style with lots of great stories and jokes in between. Bob was a true friend. He listened. He was loyal. He supported. He resisted. He made me laugh. He made me see the world fresh. He was rare. He leaves a place that can never be filled.”

Kim Echlin
Founding Trustee

“It is hard to put into words what Bob has meant to me and to this country. His belief that character was the truest measure of a young person’s potential was, at the time, a genuinely unconventional idea, and he acted on it with quiet determination and his characteristic resolve. His vision shaped me first as a scholar, and then, twenty years later, as a leader, having the privilege of leading this organization. On this side of the desk, I have seen firsthand what his vision set in motion: the generosity it inspires, the lives it transforms, and the cumulative impact of a community that continues to carry it forward. His legacy is both personal and collective, and I am deeply grateful for his life.”

Meghan Moore (’98)
CEO, Loran Scholars Foundation

“Bob made an extraordinary contribution to our sense of ourselves as members of a community. He had a great respect for academic and intellectual achievement. He had an equal respect for those who were willing to share their talents with the building and well-being of community. Bob spent a good part of his life trying to fuse the two, much to the benefit of so many young Canadians, and so many others. He was one of a kind! We are so lucky he came our way!”

David Crombie OC
Honorary Council; Founding Trustee

“Bob Cluett built something that is genuinely rare: a vision compelling enough that an entire community of volunteers, donors, universities, and young people has chosen to protect and carry forward for nearly four decades. He believed that character was the truest measure of young people’s potential, and he never wavered from that conviction. His legacy is not a plaque on a wall. It is the 800-plus Loran Scholars who are quietly and steadily helping make this country better. The Loran Scholars Foundation is his gift to Canada, and on behalf of the Board, I am deeply grateful for everything he has given us.”

Mike Johnston
Board Chair; President & CEO at REDspace