Thom Hartmann

About

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.

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…