Thomas Richard "Tom" Carper (born January 23, 1947) is an American economist and politician from Wilmington, in New Castle County, Delaware. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War, and a member of the Democratic Party, who served as U. S. Representative from Delaware, Governor of Delaware, and is the incumbent junior U.S. Senator from Delaware.

Early life and family

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Carper was born January 23, 1947 in Beckley, West Virginia, grew up in Danville, Virginia, and graduated from Whetstone High School in Columbus, Ohio. He then graduated from Ohio State University in 1968, where he was in the U.S. Navy ROTC and earned a degree in Economics. Serving as a Naval Flight Officer in the U.S. Navy from 1968 until 1973, he saw active duty in Vietnam, flying submarine hunting planes. He remained in the U.S. Naval Reserve for another 18 years and retired with the rank of Captain. Meanwhile he moved to Delaware and earned an MBA from the University of Delaware in 1975. He has been married twice, first in 1978, to Diane Isaacs, a former Miss Delaware, who had two children by a previous marriage. Following a 1983 divorce, he then married Martha Ann Stacy in 1985, and with her has two children, Christopher and Benjamin. They are members of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware.

Early political career

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While in college at Ohio State University, Carper had worked on the presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy, the Minnesota peace candidate. Once in Delaware he was campaign treasurer for University of Delaware professor, James R. Soles, in his unsuccessful 1974 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. Upon receiving his MBA degree in 1975, Carper went to work for the State of Delaware in its economic development office. In 1976, with his good contacts in the Democratic Party leadership, no other obvious Democratic candidate, and a $5,000 personal loan, Carper convinced the party leaders, and later the voters, that he was the right person to be Delaware State Treasurer. Defeating favored Republican Party candidate, Theodore Jones, he served three terms, from January 18, 1977 through January 3, 1983, during which time he developed Delaware's first cash management system.

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