Bill Lacy is the Director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. In this role, Lacy has led his Dole Institute team in creating world class political programming focusing on a bipartisan and philosophically balanced approach since 2004.

Under Lacy’s leadership the Dole Institute has hosted a huge variety of political leaders, practitioners and journalists. Under his watch, the Institute conducted the Salute to the Leader fund raiser that added $2 million to the Institute’s endowment, embarked on a major oral history program on the legacy of Sen. Bob Dole’s senate leadership, is processing the extensive Dole collection in it’s archives and has instituted a highly successful post-election conference that examines each election from a variety of viewpoints.

Lacy also serves as a political analyst for KMBZ, Kansas City’s top ranked news/ talk station.

From August of 2007 through January 2008, Lacy took a leave of absence to manage the presidential campaign of former Tennessee U.S. Senator Fred Thompson.

Lacy had a twenty year career in Washington, D.C. as a campaign strategist. He served as White House Political Director and Deputy Assistant to President Reagan. He also served in senior roles in Bob Dole’s 1988 and 1996 presidential campaign and as a consultant to his 1992 Senate race.

Lacy has had major roles in six presidential campaigns and was involved in every GOP presidential campaign from 1980-1996. Bill served as Political Director of the Republican Party in 1984, in charge of the Reagan re-elect voter registration and turnout programs. He ran California for George Bush in 1988, the last successful Republican presidential campaign there. Lacy consulted on a number of other successful campaigns, including former Senator Thompson’s record win in 1994 and re-election in 1996.

Before joining the Dole Institute, Lacy served as Vice-chairman and CEO of the Sophie Mae Candy Company and saw first hand how politics and legislation affects the business world.

Lacy served on the Advisory Board of the 1988 Presidential Oral History project of the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. In 1989, he was selected to travel to Japan to study their political system and in 1990 traveled to Czechoslovakia to advise political parties on their first democratic elections in 50 years. Lacy was appointed a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in 1991.

Lacy has done numerous interviews and appeared on the three major television networks and done cable shows like Crossfire and Tim Russert. He was selected as a Campaigns & Elections Magazine “mover and shaker” and was featured in the late John Kennedy Jr.’s inaugural issue of George magazine.

Lacy’s wife is Susie. He is an avid cyclist and a big fan of cycling’s grand tours and classics.