Inducted in 2009
Media Executive
Founding Director, National Youth Suicide Prevention Center
Member, Prep Board of Trustees (1976-1982)
Father of a Prep Graduate

Induction Video

Thomas Leahy was born in 1937 in Manhattan, and grew up in the Bronx, attending St. Brendan's Grammar School before arriving at Fordham Prep as a member of the Class of 1955. At the Prep, Donald and Marie's son played football on the illustrious 1954 undefeated and untied team, belonged to the German Club, and was an enthusiastic participant in intramural sports.

After his Hughes Hall years, Leahy went on to receive his degree in electrical engineering from Manhattan College in 1959 and served in the Army Reserves from 1959 to 1965.

Looking back on his college days, Leahy used to tell stories about his part-time job at NBC as a page. The hours, he would recall, happened to fit in nicely around his class schedule. His stint as a page led to a brief position with ABC and his subsequent move to the sales department at CBS. In the words of friend and classmate Robert Hildner, “The show business bug bit him hard. He was always fascinated by television.” Luckily, in addition to his engineering classes, Leahy had had the foresight to take a good number of business courses as well. They would serve him well as his career in the broadcasting industry began to take shape.
 
Leahy flourished at CBS, becoming a vice president in 1973. Four years later, he was appointed president of the Station Division, and in 1981 he was named a senior vice president of the Broadcasting Group. Subsequently, he became an executive vice president and was responsible for the CBS Network and Entertainment Divisions, which included managing the broadcasts of the Tony Awards. Later he would serve as president of the Marketing Division.

All in all, Tom would spend 29 years with CBS before retiring in 1992.
 
After leaving CBS, Tom became president of the Theater Development Fund, a non-profit organization that operates the famous TKTS discount booths in Times Square. He was also chairman of the board of the Broadway Association and president of Studio Lane Productions, Inc., a programming consultant firm to the Cablevision Systems Corporation. He produced movies for the Showtime, TNT and USA networks including one — much to the native Bronx boy's satisfaction — entitled Joe Torre: Curveballs Along the Way. Leahy was also named founding dean of the Queens College School of Journalism, Media and Information Studies when the school was created in 1998 and was also the founding director of the National Youth Suicide Prevention Center in Washington, DC.
 
For years, the broadcast industry’s Myers Media Creativity and Innovation Awards Program has honored Tom by awarding the Thomas F. Leahy Awards for Media Creativity and Innovation. The program describes Tom’s contribution like this:

Many former CBS executives now look back at that era and acknowledge that Leahy's leadership, creativity and innovation was inspired and ground-breaking. Leahy was responsible for establishing the television industry's first integrated marketing unit and he was an active advocate of implementing new techniques and strategies for new business development. Leahy was also an advocate of investment in new media, including cable, although CBS executives at the time were less enthusiastic. He was a great boss and an outstanding and honorable executive.

Thomas and his beloved wife Patricia were long-time residents of Bronxville, New York. They had five children: Allison, Patti Ann, Thomas, Kirsten and Caitlin . Thomas, Jr. graduated from the Prep in 1986.
 
According to Robert Hildner, who had also been Tom’s classmate at St. Brendan’s on Perry Avenue before they both became members of the Prep Class of 1955: “Tom was a wonderful human being who exemplified the Prep’s values and spirit. He never forgot where he came from, and he was never too busy to visit with his old friends. Tom was truly a man for all seasons.”
 
Thomas F. Leahy passed away in March 2002. In the words of his eulogy, delivered by John P. Blessington, Class of 1951, Leahy’s cousin-by-marriage: "Tom was generous to a fault with friends, had a wicked sense of humor, and was the smartest business executive I ever worked with. Irish and Catholic were burned into his soul, and his death was a loss to his family, many friends, and the host of causes he championed."