Bob Craves

Bob Craves was the Co-founder and CEO of the College Success Foundation, a public/private partnership committed to providing college scholarships and mentoring to low-income, high-potential students.  He also served as Chair, President, and CEO of the College Success Foundation – District of Columbia.

The College Success Foundation has over fourteen years of proven experience, inspiring underserved, low-income students to finish high school, and providing the unique integrated system of supports and scholarships they need to graduate college and succeed in life.

Over the past fourteen years, College Success Foundation has raised nearly $500,000,000 for scholarships and programs for over 10,000 low-income students, mainly of color, to go to college.  To date over 3,000 students have earned their baccalaureate degrees.

From 1995 to 2005, Mr. Craves was Chair of Washington State’s Communities in Schools, overseeing the development of this program in a number of school districts.

From 1997 through 2005, Mr. Craves served as Chairman of the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board.  He was responsible for overseeing the coordination of the budgets and policies of four-year public institutions and the distribution of financial aid to all eligible students, both public and private.

In 1998, Mr. Craves was appointed Co-chair of the Washington State 2020 Commission on the Future of Post-Secondary Education.  At the conclusion of the Commission, Mr. Craves and Ms. Ann Ramsay-Jenkins founded the Washington Education Foundation (now the College Success Foundation), bringing together community leaders from across the State of Washington to help students who are not adequately served nor supported by existing government and scholarship programs. In 2006, he founded the College Success Foundation in Washington DC.

In 1983, Mr. Craves was one of the founding officers of the Costco Wholesale Corporation.  He served as the Senior Vice President of Membership, Marketing, and Community Outreach until 2000 and continued on until 2005.

Mr. Craves attended and earned his baccalaureate degree from Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

He is also a board member of Washington State Mentors, Arizona College Scholarship Foundation, and the Le May Museum.  In addition, he is an emeritus member of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.