Thomas Carl Hartmann (born May 7, 1951) is an American radio personality, author, businessman, and progressive political commentator. Hartmann has been hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, since 2003 and hosted a nightly television show, The Big Picture, between 2010 and 2017.
Early life Hartmann was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, one of four children of Jean and Carl Thomas Hartmann. His paternal grandparents were from Norway, and his maternal ancestry includes Welsh and English forebears. He lived in Detroit at age two, and later grew up in Lansing, Michigan. Interested in politics from a young age, he was raised in a conservative, right-wing, Midwestern household. He campaigned with his staunchly Republican father for Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential election, when he was thirteen. Hartmann was expelled from high school during tenth grade for starting a newspaper that protested against the Vietnam War. He later earned a GED. Hartmann enrolled at Lansing Community College and transferred to Michigan State University, majoring in electrical engineering. In 1968, Hartmann opened his first business, a repair shop named "Electronics Joint," located next to Michigan State University, and became a part-time disc jockey at local country music station WITL-FM. With Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Hartmann protested against the Vietnam War. Hartmann had been interested in consciousness and spirituality since childhood, and by 1969 his interest evolved from a hippie subculture to Christian mysticism. During that year, he met the head of the Coptic Fellowship, Kurt Stanley, and Hamid Bey, an Egyptian Coptic priest who founded the Coptic Fellowship in the U.S. In 1971 Hartmann was ordained as a minister with Coptic Fellowship International. He has since been a keynote speaker at Coptic conferences nationally. In 1973, Hartmann returned to Detroit to work as an engineer with RCA.
Business career Hartmann began his business career in the early 1970s while in his 20s, co-founding the Woodley Herber Co., which sold herbal products, potpourris and teas, and operated until 1978. During this time, Hartmann obtained degrees in herbology and homeopathic medicine. Hartmann moved to New Hampshire to start the New England Salem Children's Village, which currently operates in Rumney, New Hampshire. He was its executive director for five years and served on the board of directors for more than 25 years. The childcare's model was based on the German Salem International organization. Through his affiliation with that group, he helped start international relief programs. Hartmann founded International Wholesale Travel and its retail subsidiary Sprayberry Travel in Atlanta in 1983, a business which in the intervening years generated over $250 million in revenue. According to their website, Sprayberry Travel was lauded by the Wall Street Journal in 1984 as an early adopter of frequent travel programs, analogous to airline-industry frequent-flyer programs. He sold his share in the business in 1986, and retired with his family to Germany to work with the international relief organization Salem International. In the late 1970s, he was a trainer in advertising and marketing for American Marketing Centers (now defunct), and in 1987, after returning from Germany, founded the Atlanta advertising agency Chandler, MacDonald, Stout, Schneiderman & Poe, Inc., doing business as the Newsletter Factory. He sold his interest in that company in 1996, and again retired to Vermont.
Broadcasting career
Talk radio career
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