Prior to becoming President in 2015, Tom was RPA’s executive director for over a decade. Tom has led many RPA initiatives, including both the RPA Fourth Regional Plan (2017) and Third Regional Plan, “A Region at Risk” (1996). He helped manage RPA’s response to 9/11 and the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan, including the historic “Listening to the City” forum in 2002; the campaign to build a mixed-use district at Manhattan’s Hudson Yards; and RPA’s centennial exhibition, The Constant Future, in Grand Central Terminal in 2022.
In January 2020, Governor Phil Murphy appointed Tom to be the Chair of the New Jersey State Planning Commission, which is currently overseeing the process of readopting the New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan.
Tom is a visiting lecturer at Columbia University. He has a master’s degree in urban planning from Columbia and a bachelor’s degree in history and a certificate in American Studies from Princeton.