Early Years and Personal Life
Carper was born in Beckley, West Virginia, the son of Mary Jean (née Patton) and Wallace Richard Carper. He grew up in Danville, Virginia and graduated from Whetstone High School in Columbus, Ohio. He then graduated from the Ohio State University in 1968, where he was a midhsipman in the Naval ROTC and earned a degree in economics. Also while he was in college, Carper was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity.
Serving as a Naval Flight Officer in the U.S. Navy from 1968 until 1973, he served three tours of duty in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He remained in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a P-3 aircraft mission commander for another 18 years and retired with the rank of Captain (O-6). Meanwhile, he moved to Delaware and earned a MBA from the University of Delaware in 1975. After which he went to work for the economic development office for the State of Delaware Carper has been married twice, first in 1978, to Diane Beverly Isaacs, a former Miss Delaware, who had two children by a previous marriage. Following a 1983 divorce, he married Martha Ann Stacy in 1985, and with her he has two children, Christopher and Benjamin. They are members of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware.
Read more about this topic: Tom Carper
Famous quotes containing the words early, years, personal and/or life:
“To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candour never waited to be asked for its opinion.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“When people ask me how I develop recipes, I have to respond: “travelling, eating, watching, experimenting, and constantly asking myself: ‘Do I want to eat this dish again?’” Will I yearn for it some evening when I’m hungry? Will I remember it in six months’ time? In a year? Five years from now?”
—Paula Wolfert, U.S. cookbook writer. Paula Wolfert’s World of Food, Introduction, Harper and Row (1988)
“Close friends contribute to our personal growth. They also contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound sweeter, the wine taste richer, the laughter ring louder because they are there.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)
“All mothers need instruction, nurturing, and an understanding mentor after the birth of a baby, but in this age of fast foods, fast tracks, and fast lanes, it doesn’t always happen. While we live in a society that provides recognition for just about every life event—from baptisms to bar mitzvahs, from wedding vows to funeral rites—the entry into parenting seems to be a solo flight, with nothing and no one to mark formally the new mom’s entry into motherhood.”
—Sally Placksin (20th century)