Tom Ballard grew up in Ankeny, Iowa, and attended Truman State from 1965 to 1969, graduating with a B.S. in the spring of 1969. While at Truman, he was a member of Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity. Following graduation, Tom spent most of the next three years as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps and served as an infantry officer with the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam. He and his wife Susan met in Washington, D.C., while Tom was still in the Marines, and they were married in 1972. After the Marines, Tom decided on a career in the computer industry that included working for Honeywell, Loral/Rolm and Cordant Systems. He retired from Cordant Systems in 1997 as vice president, Command/Control/Intelligence Programs where he managed all contracts and engineering activities related to the contracts with the various U.S. Intelligence Agencies and other Department of Defense contracts. Susan also retired in 1997 after a 27-year career with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. 

Tom also served as a corporate officer with Cordant, a privately held company that provided complex computer systems to the Federal Government and was bought by a major U.S. defense contractor in 1996. In addition, Tom also served on the Intelligence Committee of the Armed Forces Communication and Electronics Association (AFCEA) from 1993 to 1997. While in the Washington, D.C., area, Tom and Susan resided in Falls Church, Va., and later in Great Falls, Va.

In 2001 Tom and Susan decided they needed a slower pace of life and moved to Iowa, and they currently reside about 15 miles northwest of Des Moines. Tom keeps busy managing farm land that he and Susan own in northwest Iowa, serving as a general partner in an Iowa-based Ethanol plant and a managing partner in a flight-training company where he is a commercial pilot and flight instructor. He also enjoys playing golf and is involved with several charitable organizations. Since 2005, he has served on the Truman State University Foundation Board. Tom says he is "addicted" to sailboat racing and races a sailboat based in Annapolis, Md., that he has an ownership interest in, and he travels to Annapolis regularly in the summer for races.  While living in Virginia, Tom raced competitively on the East Coast and is a two-time winner of Key West Race Week held in January at Key West, Fla.

"I consider myself very fortunate to have attended Truman State,” says Tom. “The friendships that I developed while in Kirksville remain even stronger today and are very important to me. The education and experiences gained here have provided me many opportunities over the years.  Kirksville is a great place to get a great education."