Retired and Lovin’ It!

Tom is a life-long resident of Gahanna. He and his wife, Becky, were married in Gahanna in 1972 and will have been married for 50 years in May of 2022. All of their 5 children graduated from Gahanna-Jefferson schools and currently live and are raising their growing families in Central Ohio. Tom and Becky are active members of Church of The Resurrection Catholic Church where they are finding new ways to be involved in the community through numerous church-sponsored activities.

In 1977 Tom received an honorable discharge after completing 6 years of military service as a helicopter crew chief in the Ohio Army National Guard. In 1970 he began a 30+ year career at SBC (formerly Ohio Bell/Ameritech), where as a Transport Technical Manager he was responsible for complex fiber optic communication systems and electronic transport equipment vendors for a 13-state region. After retiring from SBC in 2001 Tom went to work for Applied Innovation as a product and marketing manager and business development director, eventually moving into local government technology service as the Technology Director for the City of Whitehall in 2008.

Tom became involved in the local community in the early 1970’s. He joined the Mifflin Township Fire Department in 1978 as a volunteer firefighter and was active until the late 1980’s. Also In the late 1980’s he was involved with forming the Civic SAM (Stygler/Agler/McCutcheon) civic association to work with the city to address local neighborhood issues, one being serious sanitary sewer problems plaguing the older neighborhoods in the Stygler, Agler and McCutcheon Road area. Tom was president of the association until he was elected Ward 1 city council representative in 1991.

In 1997 Tom was one of the founding members of the Gahanna Veterans Memorial Committee, who designed and built a memorial in Gahanna to honor all veterans who have served our country. An active member since its founding in 1997 he continues to serve as an active volunteer member and as a member of the planning committee that plans and coordinates the twice annual memorial brick dedications.

Tom has been active in local politics including five terms as the Ward 1 council representative and two terms as an At-Large member of council. During the time Tom served on city council he was selected by his peers to represent city council as its president and vice president six times and had the opportunity to chair all council committees.

Tom was employed by the City of Whitehall as its Technology Director from 2008-2010 and 2012-2015 and since 2013 he concurrently held an At-Large seat on Gahanna City Council.

In November 2015 Tom was elected Mayor of The City of Gahanna and began serving his term on January 2nd of 2016. In January of 2020 Tom retired as Gahanna’s Mayor and is pursuing a number of other interests including being active in his local church community and as a mentor to community members wishing to learn basic skills in home maintenance.

Tom is proud of his family, his life-long Gahanna heritage and the public and private sector contributions he has been able to share with the community he loves.