Thomas S. Kleppe

Thomas S. Kleppe

Thomas Savig Kleppe (born July 1, 1919 in Kintyre , Emmons County , North Dakota , † March 2, 2007 in Bethesda , Maryland ) was an American politician ( Republican Party ) who served in the cabinet of US President Gerald Ford as Secretary of the Interior belonged to.

Life

Kleppe came from a family that settled in North Dakota under the Homestead Act . He graduated from Valley City High School in 1936 and attended the city's teachers' college the following year. From 1942 he served as a warrant officer within the US Army during World War II .

After retiring from the army in 1946, that same year he assumed the post of President of the Gold Seal Company , a company that manufactured floor wax and, during his tenure , which lasted until 1964, went from a small company to the market leader in the sector.

politics

During this time, Kleppe also became politically active for the first time when he held the post of mayor of Bismarck between 1950 and 1954 . In 1964 he was put up by the Republicans as a candidate for election to the US Senate ; with 42 percent of the vote, however, he was clearly defeated by the Democratic incumbent Quentin N. Burdick . Two years later he was elected to the US House of Representatives, in which he remained until 1970 after re-election. That year he decided not to run again; instead, he ran again to the election for a Senate seat, but was again subject to Quentin Burdick, this time only getting 37 percent of the vote.

From 1971 to 1975, Kleppe served as the head of the Small Business Administration , an agency subordinate to the US government whose purpose was to support smaller business enterprises. On October 17, 1975, President Ford finally appointed him to succeed the resigned Stanley K. Hathaway as Home Secretary in his cabinet . When Ford had to resign from the presidency in early 1977 after its electoral defeat by Jimmy Carter , Kleppe's political career ended.

Subsequently, he was still on the faculty of the University of Wyoming . Thomas Kleppe died at the beginning of 2007 as a result of Alzheimer's disease .

Web links

• Thomas S. Kleppe in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Thomas S. Kleppe at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia (English)