Tom Sugar

Tom Sugar is the Vice-President for Partnerships.  He joined EAB after co-founding and helping to lead Complete College America for nearly nine years, ultimately serving as its president.  Prior to that, Tom served for eleven years as chief of staff to a US Senator and as chief of staff and in other positions over six years for a US Representative in Congress.  Tom has also served as director of planning and communications for a Governor, in addition to managing statewide, regional and metro-level campaigns. 

Leveraging EAB’s technology and research, Tom is applying his years of leadership in higher education advocacy and reform to accelerate and strengthen the scaling and sustainability of critical changes in policy and practice to eliminate achievement gaps for underrepresented populations.  With equity as his north star, Tom believes that essential educational partnerships must be forged across regions and metro areas between government, philanthropy, K-12, higher education, business, labor and social justice institutions with a singular and shared mission: the lifelong talent development of all people – especially those most often left behind. 

Tom feels very lucky to be husband to Nancy and father to Jackson and Carter.  He has come to learn that the things we experience together are far more important than the things we own together.  That’s why you’ll often find Tom and his family climbing mountains, hiking forests, canoeing rivers and sharing other adventures, often with their local Boy Scout troop.