Tom Carper is serving as the senior United States Senator from Delaware, having held this seat since he was first elected in 2001.
Senator Tom Carper was born in West Virginia and raised in Virginia.
After attending The Ohio State University on a Navy R.O.T.C. scholarship and graduating in 1968 with a B.A. in economics, he went on to complete five years of service as a naval flight officer, serving three tours of duty in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and continued to serve in the Naval Reserve as a P-3 aircraft mission commander until retiring with the rank of captain in 1991 after 23 years of military service. Tom is the last Vietnam War veteran serving in the U.S. Senate.
Tom Carper moved to Delaware in 1973 where he earned his M.B.A. at the University of Delaware.
In 1976, at the age of 29, he was elected to the first of three terms as Delaware’s state treasurer. At the time, Delaware had the worst credit rating of any state in America. Six years later, with that credit rating restored to a respectable “AA,” he ran for — and was elected—to Delaware’s at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Tom went on to serve five terms as a U.S. Congressman.
He then served two terms as governor of Delaware beginning in 1993. Tom’s tenure as Governor led to eight balanced budgets—with tax cuts in seven of those eight years—record growth in employment, and a reduction in state debt, all of which led to Delaware earning AAA credit ratings for the first time in the state’s history. During his second term as governor, he was selected to serve as Vice-Chairman, then as Chairman, of the National Governors’ Association (NGA).
