Leadership Team

G. Vance Smith was born, raised, and educated in Salt Lake City, Utah.  As a store manager for a national retail chain, Vance was transferred to Denver in 1966. It was there that he joined The John Birch Society (JBS) and functioned as a volunteer leader for several years. Like many other concerned Americans at that time, Vance had become a great admirer of the tough leadership of the Society’s founder — the brilliant patriot Robert Welch.
 
In 1972 Vance gave up his business career to work full time for the Society as a field Coordinator. Later he would become the Society’s National Director of Field Activities, and in June of 1991, Vance was named the Chief Executive Officer of JBS, a position he filled for more than 14 years.

He also headed up several of the Society’s affiliated corporations, including Robert Welch University — a project initiated in 1974 by Robert Welch, under a different name, but brought to life under the leadership of G. Vance Smith in 2002.

In October of 2005, the Society became the victim of a highly unfortunate internal division (such as befalls many churches), and Vance along with several of his colleagues reluctantly gave up their leadership positions with the JBS. For a couple of years he directed his efforts to Robert Welch University — the organization he had helped to get off the ground with an online program.  

During that period Vance became convinced that the primary organization Robert Welch had founded (JBS) would no longer provide the unique leadership that Mr. Welch had insisted was essential for America to survive a diabolical attack by the Conspiracy on our nation’s foundations. And so in 2007, with the support of several former veteran members of the JBS Executive Committee of its National Council, Vance offered his leadership for the daunting challenge of launching a new organization from scratch — Freedom First Society.

Vance now serves as the new organization’s president. He is the co-author with Tom Gow of Organize for Victory! —  a book that spells out the principles and strategy of Freedom First Society and what they insist concerned Americans must do  to preserve freedom.

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Tom Gow, the Vice President of Freedom First Society, grew up in Southern California. Tom first became interested in the freedom fight during his senior year of high school, through the writings of Fred Schwarz, Herb Philbrick, Senator Barry Goldwater and others in books “carelessly” left around the house by his father. Tom frequently visited local anti-Communist bookstores and upon entering UCLA as a freshman would challenge college radicals. In the early sixties Tom helped build attendance for a major televised rally of Fred Schwarz’s Christian Anti-Communism Crusade.

In the middle sixties Tom served for two years on active duty in the U.S. Navy on a conventional submarine. Subsequently he went to work for a local electric utility and rose to second level supervision. While working full time, Tom resumed his course work at UCLA, graduating in 1976 with Departmental Honors in Math. During those years, he also developed a strong understanding of and commitment to free market economics.

In 1983 Tom gave up his salaried position with the utility to work full time in the freedom fight as a field Coordinator for The John Birch Society (JBS) in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. In 1991 he was appointed VP, a position he held until 2005. Following an unfortunate internal leadership coup at JBS, Tom shifted his energies to a previously affiliated organization, Robert Welch University.

In 2007, Tom and the CEO of RWU, G. Vance Smith, enlisted the support of several prominent businessmen to found a new organization, Freedom First Society. Freedom First Society was structured to carry on the freedom fight following the plan espoused by Robert Welch. As the organization was being launched Tom and Vance co-authored Organize for Victory!, which spelled out the mission and founding principles for Freedom First Society.