Tom Leppert - Early Life, Education, and Early Career

Early Life, Education, and Early Career

Leppert is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College, where he earned a Bachelor's Degree in economics with cum laude honors in 1977 and served as Student Body President. He then went on to attend Harvard Business School, where he received a M.B.A. with Distinction in 1979.

Leppert served as a White House Fellow in the Reagan Administration in 1984 and 1985. He was one of 13 fellows chosen from 1,247 applicants by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. During his fellowship, Leppert worked for the secretary of the Treasury and on the White House staff.

On May 17, 2008, Leppert received an honorary doctorate from his undergraduate alma mater, Claremont McKenna College, for which he serves as a trustee. Leppert told graduates to "know your principles" and encouraged them to write them down. "This may sound simple and obvious, but over the course of a lifetime, it may be one of the most difficult promises you ever keep. I know I am confronted by this each and every day. Simply stated, using generic terms like honesty and integrity are not near enough People rarely get in trouble or lose their compass in one fell swoop... it is a series of small compromises, missteps that lead to a landslide... and a lost sense of self." In the same speech, Leppert called his visit to Auschwitz a "single day changed the way I looked at the world."

Leppert is a member of First Baptist Church Dallas and was formerly a member of the Dallas Country Club (prior to resigning in December 2006 due to his concern that the club’s tradition of refusing membership to black applicants could become an issue during the mayoral campaign). He and his wife Laura have two sons and a daughter. Leppert grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. Leppert was a member of the youth leadership organization DeMolay International and rose up the ranks of Arizona DeMolay to become State Master Councilor (State President) in 1972-1973. He was inducted into the DeMolay International Hall of Fame in 2010. He attended college at Harvard University, where upon graduation in 1979, worked in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and New York before moving to Dallas between 1986 and 1989; in 1989, he moved to Honolulu, where he resided until 1999 (when he became CEO of the Turner Corporation). Upon joining Turner, he relocated to the Park Cities (an affluent suburb of Dallas) and moved the holding company's headquarters to Dallas. He moved to Dallas in 2003.