By Lori Sturdevant
A willing and able civic leader. A skillful second-in-command to CEOs in government, higher education and industry. A strategist in persistent search of solutions to vexing public problems. A trusted elected official. A steadfast booster of his state and country. A steward of the planet.
Those are some of the ways Minnesotans would describe one of their most durable and respected fellow citizens, Thomas H. Swain, who is due to reach his 100th birthday on July 4, 2021. Swain’s civic contributions are so numerous and significant that their recounting filled a book. His memoir, “Citizen Swain: Tales of a Minnesota Life,” was published by University of Minnesota Press in 2015.
A native of Minneapolis who spent much of his adult life in St. Paul, Swain has worked in and out of public life. He’s been a corporate executive, a gubernatorial chief of staff, a state agency head, a chamber of commerce official, a suburban mayor and twice a University of Minnesota vice president, most recently in 2004. Public problem-solving has been a theme in each of his professional roles. He’s been such a model of civic engagement that other Minnesotans involved in public work often speak about a desire for more “Tom Swain types” for their efforts.
Swain intends to mark his personal centenary in a manner consistent with his life’s work: He and a committee of friends are making plans to invite Minnesotans to become more committed to combating climate change. No problem confronting humankind is more urgent, Tom says. Indeed, he has been saying as much to anyone who would listen for the last decade. He often speaks about his admiration for teenaged Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. He would like nothing more than to encourage Americans to follow Thunberg’s example and make the climate cause their own.
At Tom’s direction and in keeping with his vision for a land-grant university, the effort will be centered at the University of Minnesota. But the committee’s intention is to reach well beyond that institution’s constituency. Such a series would bolster the work of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which through its missions of education, research and outreach is already doing much to address the climate crisis, and is well positioned to do more.
Members of the Swain-at-100 planning committee have been struck by a parallel between our Tom and another, the late Captain Thomas Moore of the United Kingdom. Like Sir Thomas, whose garden walks raised £40 million for COVID research before his death in February, Tom Swain is a sharp, forward-looking exemplar of the Greatest Generation. Rather than focusing on the past, Swain is keen to do what he can to contribute to a brighter future. That determination is bound to prove infectious among those who already know and admire Tom Swain. The committee believes it can touch a far larger circle as well.