As a volunteer, Tom is the senior spokesman for FairTax.org. Most recently, he was the organization’s executive director; he has also served as Florida state director and American Farm Bureau Federation national liaison. Since 1992, he has also served as floor leader for the national retail sales tax movement at the Texas Republican convention.
Since January of 1990, he is or has served as a grassroots organizer, coalition builder, citizen lobbyist, and spokesman for several organizations working to replace income and payroll taxes with a national retail sales tax. These organizations include Americans For Fair Taxation, American Tax Freedom Foundation, Citizens for an Alternative Tax System, the National Ask Your Candidate Campaign, and National Tax Research Committee.
To make the house payment, Tom is director of investor relations and corporate affairs for a Clearwater, Florida-based hedge fund: Emory Partners, L.P., with more than $95 million under management.
Tom joined the hedge funds after taking time off to tend to his wife’s health. Prior to this, he sold his advertising/public relations/lobbying business to Fogarty Klein & Partners, Houston’s largest marketing communications firm. He was co-founder and president of Wright Marketing Communications, a full-service marketing consulting and communications company specializing in technology-based clients. For more than 15 years, his company provided marketing research and strategic planning, and implemented advertising, public relations, and sales support projects for clients ranging from large public corporations to venture-capital-based start-ups.
Tom is also a co-founder of a Houston urban literacy project, partnered with Mayor Lee P. Brown in his middle school violence reduction initiative, co-founded Houston’s Tanglewood Academy, and volunteers as a spokesman for other non-profits involved in school violence reduction, education improvement and literacy, and psychiatric patients’ rights.
A Texan by attitude, he currently lives in Florida with his wife of 24 years, Bonnie, and his two children.
Watch The FairTax: It's Time, a video from FairTax.org:
