Tom Patterson (born February 12, 1979) is an American entrepreneur, who founded the ''Tommy John'' company in 2008.

Early life

Patterson was raised in South Dakota. He graduated from

Milbank Milbank LLP (commonly known as Milbank) is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. It also has offices in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, and Beijing. Hi ...

High School in 1998 and went on to attend

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

, where he graduated with a degree in business communications.

Career

Patterson began his career as a medical device salesman, a position from which he was released in wake of the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

. Frequently wearing

business attire Informal wear or undress, also called business wear, corporate/office wear, tenue de ville or dress clothes, is a Western dress code for clothing defined by a business suit for men, and cocktail dress or pant suit for women. On the scale of fo ...

as part of his position, Patterson became irritated with the fit of his undershirts, which led him to design a new undershirt for himself. After being let go from his sales job, Patterson began selling his undershirts from his apartment in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

. He founded Tommy John with his wife, Erin Fujimoto, in 2008. Lacking a background in fashion, Patterson used his sales skills from his previous position to expand the company. Under his leadership, Tommy John expanded their product range to include

socks A sock is a piece of clothing worn on the feet and often covering the ankle or some part of the calf. Some types of shoes or boots are typically worn over socks. In ancient times, socks were made from leather or matted animal hair. In the late ...

sportswear Sportswear or activewear is clothing, including footwear, worn for sport or physical exercise. Sport-specific clothing is worn for most sports and physical exercise, for practical, comfort or safety reasons. Typical sport-specific garments ...

, and

underwear Undergarments, underclothing, or underwear are items of clothing worn beneath outer clothes, usually in direct contact with the skin, although they may comprise more than a single layer. They serve to keep outer garments from being soiled o ...

, The company was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in New York City.

Accolades

Patterson was included in ''

Crain's New York Business Crain Communications Inc is an American multi-industry publishing conglomerate based in Detroit, Michigan, United States, with 13 non-US subsidiaries. History Gustavus Dedman (G.D.) Crain, Jr. ( Gustavus Demetrious Crain, Jr.; 1885–1973), pre ...

'' magazine's "Forty under 40" list in 2016, and he was named EY's Entrepreneur of the Year New York for Retail and Consumer Goods in 2017.

References

External links

Company website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Patterson, Tom Living people 21st-century American businesspeople 1979 births People from Milbank, South Dakota