Thomas Howard Kean Sr. ( KAYN; born April 21, 1935) is an American statesman and academic administrator who served as the 48th governor of New Jersey from 1982 to 1990. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the New Jersey General Assembly and was chair of the 9/11 Commission from 2002 to 2004.
Kean is a member of the Kean political family. His father, Robert Kean, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and his grandfather, Hamilton Fish Kean, served in the U.S. Senate. After graduating from Princeton University, Kean worked as a history teacher and obtained a master's degree from Teachers College at Columbia University. He served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 1968 to 1978 and held the role of speaker of the Assembly from 1972 to 1973. Kean was elected governor of New Jersey in 1981 and was re-elected in 1985. A moderate Republican, Kean is regarded as a popular governor who promoted New Jersey tourism.
Following his two terms as governor, Kean served as president of Drew University from 1990 until 2005. After the September 11 attacks, Kean was appointed by President George W. Bush as chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, widely known as the 9/11 Commission. On July 22, 2004, Kean and the commission released their findings in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Kean is the father of U.S. representative Thomas Kean Jr., who has represented New Jersey's 7th congressional district since 2023.
Kean was born in New York City to a long line of Dutch Americans and New Jersey politicians. His mother was Elizabeth Stuyvesant Howard and his father, Robert Kean, was a U.S. representative from 1939 until 1959. Kean's grandfather Hamilton Fish Kean and great-uncle John Kean both served as U.S. senators from New Jersey. His second great-uncle was Hamilton Fish, a U.S. senator, governor of New York, and U.S. secretary of state. Kean is also descended from William Livingston, who was a delegate to the Continental Congress, was the first governor of New Jersey, and is considered a founding father of New Jersey.
Kean first attended The Potomac School in McLean, Virginia. When he reached fourth grade, he entered St. Albans School, a college preparatory school in Washington, D.C. In 1946, at the age of eleven, Kean was enrolled at St. Mark's School, an Episcopalian private school in Southborough, Massachusetts that was the alma mater of his father and his two older brothers.
After graduating from St. Mark's, Kean attended Princeton University. At Princeton, he completed a senior thesis on Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, a key architect of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's constitution, entitled Niemcewicz (The Biography of a Polish Patriot, 1756-1842, Including His Impressions of America, 1797-1807). While at Princeton, Kean participated in the American Whig–Cliosophic Society, a political, literary, and debating society with a lengthy list of distinguished members. He graduated from Princeton with a B.A. in history in 1957. After working on his father's unsuccessful U.S. senatorial campaign in 1958 and returning to St. Mark's School as a history teacher for three years, Kean attended Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City, where he earned his M.A. in history.
In 1967, running as a moderate Republican, Kean was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly. He ran with Philip D. Kaltenbacher, a Short Hills Republican who had served as an aide to Assemblyman Irwin I. Kimmelman from 1964 to 1966; Kimmelman later served as Attorney General in Kean's administration as New Jersey governor. In the Republican primary, Kean and Kaltenbacher defeated Donald Fitz Maurice, Vivian Tompkins Lange, the sister of former U.S. Attorney William F. Tompkins, and Joseph Shanahan to win seats in the New Jersey Assembly.
At the start of the Assembly session in 1972, the New Jersey Assembly's then Democratic leadership sought to name S. Howard Woodson of Trenton as Speaker until Assemblyman David Friedland made a deal as one of four Democrats who voted to give the minority Republicans control of the General Assembly, and Kean was elected as Assembly Speaker. Woodson would have been the Assembly's first African American Speaker, and charges of racism were leveled against Friedland by fellow Democrats. In the following Assembly in 1974, Democrats united behind Woodson for Speaker, and Kean became the Assembly's minority leader. In 1973, Kean served briefly as acting New Jersey governor. In 1974, Kean ran for Congress in New Jersey's 5th congressional district but lost the Republican primary to Millicent Fenwick by 0.32%.
During the 1976 presidential campaign, Kean served as Gerald Ford's campaign manager for the state of New Jersey.
In 1977, Kean ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for governor of New Jersey. Although he spent most of his career as a political moderate, in this race Kean ran to the right of New Jersey Senate Minority Leader Raymond Bateman. Kean was unable to obtain the endorsement of many county Republican chairmen, or from then U.S. President Ford despite having served as Ford's campaign director for the state of New Jersey the previous year. Bateman defeated Kean and won the nomination, though Bateman went on to lose the general election to Brendan Byrne.
After the election, Governor Byrne appointed Kean as a commissioner on the board of the New Jersey Highway Authority. Kean also worked as a political commentator on New Jersey public television.
Four years later, in 1981, Kean again ran for governor. In his campaign, Kean pledged to foster job creation, clean up toxic waste sites, reduce crime, and preserve home rule. In his 1981 campaign, Kean secured the endorsement of former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who had not endorsed him in his 1977 gubernatorial campaign.
In the 1981 general election, Kean defeated Democratic Representative Jim Florio in the closest election in New Jersey gubernatorial election history, winning by 1,797 votes. The election was controversial due to the involvement of the Republican National Committee, who appointed a Ballot Security Task Force that was alleged to have intimidated voters. One of Kean's strategists in his 1981 campaign was Roger Stone, a self-proclaimed "GOP hitman."
In striking contrast to his slim 1981 victory, Kean won re-election in 1985 with the largest margin of victory ever recorded in New Jersey gubernatorial history, defeating Peter Shapiro, then Essex County Executive, 70%–29%. Kean won every municipality in the state except Audubon Park and Chesilhurst in Camden County and Roosevelt in Monmouth County.
As governor, Kean served on the President's Education Policy Advisory Committee and chaired the Education Commission of the States and the National Governors Association's Task Force on Teaching.
Kean began receiving national recognition following the launch of a multi-million dollar promotional campaign for New Jersey tourism, in television commercials promoting New Jersey as a tourist destination, that aired nationally during throughout his eight years as governor. In the ads, in which Kean was sometimes joined by various celebrities with New Jersey roots, including Brooke Shields and Bill Cosby, he recited the state's tourism motto: "New Jersey and You: Perfect Together". In 1998, the campaign was revived by then New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, capping a long-term, multibillion-dollar effort to promote the state and especially its Jersey Shore beach resorts as attractive vacation destinations.
Kean introduced a Holocaust curriculum in the New Jersey Public Schools. In 1982 he established The New Jersey Holocaust Council.