FontConverter won't work in my VB.NET code, works just fine in C#

I have a really simple C# function that I converted and use in VB.NET code.

The original:

public static Font StringToFont(string text) {
        return (Font)new FontConverter().ConvertFromString(text);
}

The converted code, in VB.NET:

Public Shared Function StringToFont(ByVal text As String) As Font
        Return DirectCast(New FontConverter().ConvertFromString(text), Font)
End Function

There was no error thrown when StringToFont was called, but when I did a mouseover of the value it showed {Name = Reference to a non-shared member requires an object reference. Size=12}, however, clicking the plus sign and drilling down into the object showed that all the properties had been set, even the Name property.

Then when I tried to assign the font to a label, I got the "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." error.

Just to be sure it wasn't some quirk of my objects, I pasted in the microsoft example:

        Dim converter As System.ComponentModel.TypeConverter = _
            System.ComponentModel.TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(GetType(Font))

        Dim font1 As Font = _
            CType(converter.ConvertFromString("Arial, 12pt"), Font)

...and got the same result trying to use font1.  Any ideas?