Thomas Ingram

As a child, Ingram lived in Alabama, Florida and Georgia before his family moved to Nashville, Tenn. He graduated from Nashville's David Lipscomb College in 1967 and earned a master's degree in social work from the University of Tennessee.

Ingram's plan was to become a reporter. Growing up, he started a community newspaper with a fifth-grade classmate. The two of them wrote the stories and distributed the paper, which was typed by a classmate's mother.

Alexander Connection

Ingram met Alexander while working as a political reporter for the Tennessean during college. At the time, Alexander worked for Howard Baker's (R-Tenn.) senatorial campaign, which Ingram covered. They stayed friends, and in 1974, Ingram left journalism to serve as the press secretary for Alexander's 1974 gubernatorial campaign. Alexander lost that race, and Ingram returned briefly to journalism as the lead political writer for the Nashville Banner.

In 1978, Ingram rejoined Alexander for another gubernatorial bid. This time, he worked as Alexander's campaign manager, and this time, Alexander won. Ingram went with his boss to the governor's mansion to be his chief of staff.

Private Sector

Ingram left government in 1983 to start his own consulting firm called the Ingram Group, and over the next 15 years, he also worked for Whittle Communications and spent four years as a venture capitalist.

During that time, he occasionally returned to Alexander's side, to help the Republican set up his office in 1987 as president of the University of Tennessee and in 1991 as education secretary under George H.W. Bush.

In 1998, Ingram was named president of the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership, an organization of businesses aimed at sparking economic development. Ingram said he wanted to appeal to the entire community and not just the official chamber of commerce groups to try to spark growth and tourism. But that wasn't always easy to do, and the partnership struggled to stay on budget and on track.

In 2002, Alexander won a seat in the U.S. Senate and asked Ingram to again help him set up his office. What started out as a six-week stint turned into a permanent job for Ingram, who became the senator's chief of staff in 2003. "I've done my best work when Tom has been with me," Alexander said in 2003.

When Alexander was elected chair of the Senate Republican Conference in December 2007, Ingram became the conference staff director, but remained in Alexander's personal office. He worked tirelessly from Monday to Thursday and then spent the weekends at home with his Tennessee-based family.

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