Richard (“Dick”) J. Fox, a Temple University trustee of nearly 40 years, and Robert (“Bob”) A. Fox, a longtime promoter of leadership education both at Temple and at the University of Pennsylvania, will receive the 2007 Musser Award for Excellence in Leadership from Temple University’s Fox School of Business on Nov. 15, 2007.

Richard and Robert Fox will receive the award at the 11th Annual Musser Awards Dinner, which will be attended by leaders in the Greater Philadelphia business community. The reception will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Great Court of Mitten Hall on North Broad Street.

The Fox School Award Committee chose Richard Fox, namesake of Temple’s business school, for this award because of the outstanding leadership he has demonstrated at Temple University, the Fox School and in the greater business community; and Robert Fox because of his longtime charitable support and leadership at the University of Pennsylvania and, recently, at Temple University, and for his substantial support of The Wistar Institute.

In announcing the award, Fox School Dean M. Moshe Porat said, “Through their great business success and their selfless commitment to education, both Bob and Dick are true role models. Consistently, they display dedication to the greater good of our community.”

Richard Fox said of the recognition, “This award has great meaning to me. To be recognized with the outstanding people who have received the Musser Award is truly an honor.”

Said Robert Fox, “Temple is Philadelphia’s great public university. Being honored by Temple’s Fox School, a school that is such a great driver of entrepreneurship, is very meaningful for me.”

The Fox brothers epitomize the Musser Award’s ethic that exceptional achievement in business and exceptional effort on behalf of the community are compatible, mutually supportive goals.

Richard Fox has been a Temple board member since 1967 and served as board chairman for 17 years, from 1983 to 2000. Past Temple University President Peter Liacouras described Richard Fox’s devotion to Temple as second only to that of Russell Conwell.

Fox’s tenure as chairman virtually coincided with the Liacouras presidency. Together, they enhanced Temple’s reputation and helped the university become better-known for its “access to excellence,” and as the best value for higher education in the region.

As a team, Fox and Liacouras guided the transformation of Temple’s campus from ordinary to dynamic.

Currently, as a Temple trustee, Richard Fox chairs the board’s Development Committee and also serves as chair of the Fox School of Business Board of Visitors.

He also gave a major donation to the Campaign for Alter Hall, the soon-to-be-completed, state-of-the-art new home of the Fox School.

Before his days at Temple, in World War II, Richard Fox enlisted in the Navy in V5 Pilot Training, and was sent to Georgia Tech to begin the program. After being discharged from the Navy, he returned to Georgia Tech where he earned his bachelor of science degree. He was recalled into the Navy during the Korean War and served on the Battleship Missouri and the DE252. After being released from active duty, he returned to Philadelphia and started the Fox Companies with his brother Bob. The Fox Companies is a major construction and real estate management firm that builds housing, apartment communities and business centers throughout the Delaware Valley. The company developed the Wachovia Center, studios for the Comcast Sports Network, and a planned residential community, Chesterbrook, on the Route 202 corridor in southeastern Pennsylvania. Dick Fox is also chairman of Planalytics, Inc., a provider of weather-based business intelligence.

Active in government, business, community and political affairs, he is presently honorary chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition and chair of the Jewish Policy Center, a national group.

In 1952, Robert Fox graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor of science in economics. After working for a homebuilder, Bob, along with Dick, founded Fox Bilt Homes, which built numerous housing communities in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Bob Fox then became president and eventually chairman and C.E.O. of the Warner Company, a New York stock exchange company in the concrete and industrial minerals field. Seeing an opportunity to use the company’s expertise in the environmental field, he founded Waste Resources, which became a national solid-waste management company. Waste Resources went public in 1972. During his tenure at Warner and Waste Resources, he made more than 30 acquisitions. In 1979, he left Warner and founded R.A.F. Industries.

R.A.F. Industries is a unique private equity firm that buys and builds middle-market companies, and presently has a portfolio of 15 companies after selling two national brands it helped create, Purdy, in the paint brush industry, and Smartwool, in the outdoor clothing market.

Throughout his career, Bob Fox has been involved in many philanthropic activities. He joined University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Trustees in 1985 and served as a board member, executive committee member and chairman of the Finance Committee until he became director emeritus in 1999. That year, he founded the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania. This program, which included the creation of three Fox Leadership professorships, has become a major program, which he recently endowed with his wife, Penny Fox.

Through the years, he has made many contributions to help The Wistar Institute, where he served as President for 10 years. Most recently, along with Penny, he established the Robert and Penny Fox Distinguished Professorship at Wistar.

In 2007, he expanded his efforts to promote leadership by initiating the Annual Frederic Fox Lecture in Leadership at Temple’s Fox School. The lecture is named for Robert and Richard’s father, Frederic. Robert and Penny Fox also made a generous contribution to the Campaign for Alter Hall, which enabled the Frederic Fox Dean’s Board Room, a sophisticated and technologically advanced meeting room in Alter Hall.

Proceeds from the 2007 Musser Excellence in Leadership Awards ceremony support the Dean’s Fund for Excellence, which helps fund innovative programs such as the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. This program enables highly motivated business honors students to conduct meaningful research throughout their undergraduate careers. The Dean’s Fund for Excellence also supports students in the International MBA and MBA programs’ innovative Enterprise Management Consulting Practicum.

Temple University’s Fox School of Business is the largest, most comprehensive business school in the greater Philadelphia region and among the largest in the world, with more than 6,000 students, 150 full-time faculty members and 51,000 alumni.

For the third consecutive year, the Financial Times ranked the Fox School’s MBA among the top 10 programs in the U.S. for “Value for Money” and as one of the top 10 programs among public urban universities in the U.S. This year, Financial Times also cited the Fox MBA in the top 50 in the U.S. for its three-year average ranking, and The Economist ranked the Fox MBA program among the top programs globally and among the top 50 programs in the nation. U.S. News and World Report ranked the Fox School’s undergraduate Risk, Management and Insurance program and its undergraduate International Business program in the top 10 in the U.S. Entrepreneur magazine and Princeton Review jointly ranked the Fox School’s undergraduate Entrepreneurship program in the top 10 in the U.S. and its graduate Entrepreneurship program in the top 15. The Fox School of Business is accredited by AACSB International (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). For more information, visit www.fox.temple.edu

Teaching: John R. Deckop, Fox School associate professor of human resource management, is an award-winning and dedicated teacher who has been teaching human resource management and ethics for more than 20 years.

Research: Steven Balsam, Fox School professor of accounting and Merves Research Fellow, has published many research articles in prestigious academic journals, such as The Accounting Review and Contemporary Accounting Research and he wrote the only book to combine practice and theory, “An Introduction to Executive Compensation.”

Faculty service: John G. Soss, finance lecturer and director of Fox’s Financial Engineering program, conceptualized, planned and implemented the Fox School’s new Master’s in Financial Engineering (MSFE) program, with an inaugural class of 25 MSFE scholars.

Administrative service: Sandra Sokol (Fox BBA and MBA), director of Fox’s Executive MBA, Professional MBA and MS programs, helped raise the stature of these programs and launched others, such as the Fox Women’s Leadership Initiative and international field study abroad for EMBA and PMBA students.

Student leadership: Amber L. Ziminski (Fox BBA ’07) served as president of the Business Honors Student Association and chair for Temple’s Relay for Life committee, and is now participating in Vanguard’s Acceleration Into Management Program — a year-long program that places graduates into full-time company positions.

Alumni Achievement: Fred Blume, a corporate lawyer for 35 years and chairman emeritus of Blank Rome LLP, is a strong supporter of the Fox School and Temple University, giving generously of both his time and money.