He was a Raleigh boy who helped build today’s Raleigh.
Tom Bradshaw, who died Tuesday at age 87, was the 33-year-old “Boy Mayor,” serving one term from 1971-1973.
He was the Secretary of Transportation who got I-40 built from Raleigh to Wilmington.
He was the real estate developer and consummate salesman who developed North Ridge and marketed it to the new IBM arrivals at RTP – an audacious step that helped Raleigh leap past Durham at a crucial point in our history.
He made sure that North Ridge Country Club, unlike Carolina Country Club, opened its doors to the newcomers, as well as to Jewish and Black members.
He made sure there was a good school in the neighborhood, and he remained a passionate advocate for public schools all his life.
Tom was always busy, enthusiastic, and bursting with energy. When he talked, the words came rushing out like a raging river bursting through a dam.
When he was mayor, I wrote a “Tar Heel of the Week” profile about him for The News & Observer. He never forgave me, good-naturedly, for describing him as “burly.”
He grew up in modest circumstances, the son of a single mother living in Halifax Court. He delivered the N&O and, after finishing his route, eagerly read the paper’s stories about politics and government.
He never finished college; he took classes at N.C. State but was in a hurry to get on with family and a career.
He and his wife Mary Mac were always passionate Wolfpack fans.
In 1977, newly elected Governor Jim Hunt appointed Tom as his first Secretary of Transportation.
Hunt told me later he wanted someone honest and ethical to head the eternally scandal-plagued DOT.
And someone energetic: the Governor assigned Tom to get the money from the federal government to finish I-40.
Tom virtually lived on the plane to Washington and wore out the carpet to the feds.
He got the money. That’s why the Tom Bradshaw Freeway in Raleigh is named for him, though he joked later, “I bet I’m the only guy you know who was named for a highway.”
After DOT, Tom went into the big-time bond business.
He racked up millions of air miles traveling all over the country as Managing Director and Co-Head of the Transportation Group for Citigroup Global Markets.
He called himself “the merchant of debt,” and financed innumerable highways, airports and infrastructure projects across America.
In 2014, at age 76, Tom ran a vigorous Democratic campaign for state Senate in a heavily gerrymandered Republican district in Wake County.
He lost by less than 1%, a testament to his popularity and hard work in a contest that was rigged against him.
I worked with him in the campaign, and his loss is one of my great disappointments.
Asa a senator, he would have had the skill, stamina and standing needed to overcome partisan divisions.
Tom wasn’t deterred by defeat; he threw himself back into the volunteer civic activities that he pursued all his life.
Like Governor Hunt, who died less than two weeks before him, Tom was a positive and optimistic spirit – a force of nature who never stopped trying to make his community, his state and our world a better place.
It was an honor and a joy to work with him.
