Thomas Reinhardt was born to Kathleen and Earl Reinhardt in Melrose, Massachusetts in February 1946. When he was in the fifth grade his family moved to Scituate, Massachusetts. He was co-captain of his high school football team and won an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He then served as an armor company commander in the 1st Infantry Division and after graduating from flight school served as a platoon leader and then operations officer for the 48th Aviation Company in Ui jong bu, Korea and again in Ansbach, Germany in the 128th Aviation Company.
In 1985, he served on President Ronald Reagan’s White House staff, first in the Office of Management and Budget where he was the Military Assistant to the Principal Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs. Following his White House duties, he was the Military Assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to NATO.
Upon retiring from the Army, he became a member of the Senior Executive Service and was appointed the Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Director of Congressional Relations for the United States Department of Justice in the George H. W. Bush administration. Mr. Reinhardt managed the congressional oversight of the department to include congressional investigations, the appropriations process and the confirmation of departmental appointees and federal judges. He then served as a Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General. In that role he coordinated activities of the Deputy’s staff and the management of 130,000 people in 38 departments.
When he left the government, he went on to work in the information technology industry until the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11. He then spent two years as the first Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary for Management helping to stand up the new Department of Homeland Security. In that capacity he assisted in directing and overseeing the largest reorganization of the Federal Government since World War II.
Mr. Reinhardt is retired on the coast of Maine with his wife Patricia and has three children and one grandchild.
- Challenger Investigation Commission – 1986
In January 1986 I was an Army major serving as the Military Assistant to the Principal Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget on the White House staff. It was a pretty lively environment responsible for budget formulation, execution and policy development and oversight for the… Read more: Challenger Investigation Commission – 1986