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Tom Culligan
(1945 - living) Canada

Tom Culligan

Writer, entrepreneur

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Tom Culligan, one of Canada's most innovative entrepreneurs, was born in Culligan, now called Belledune, New Brunswick, and still maintains the original Culligan homestead of 1824 on the Bay de Chaleur in northern New Brunswick, Canada.

Tom, president of Culligan Publishing Limited, started his publishing career with his first self-published book, Teacups and Sticky Buns. It's really his Mom's story, telling of her "powerful devotion in raising nine children against the severest storms that life could throw at her. A very Canadian story grounded in the glorious landscape found along the North Shore of New Brunswick's Baie de Chaleur, Canada".

Tom holds a degree in Theology and Philosophy from the University of Dayton at Dayton, Ohio. Aside from his interest in private financial and real estate developments, Tom devotes himself full-time to painting and writing. He divides his time between Muskoka, New Brunswick and Florida.

Tom Culligan is co-founder of "The Second Cup" and was the first to develop a chain of retail stores specializing in gourmet coffee in North America. Tom created and developed the Second Cup concept from a tiny 90-foot kiosk in 1975 to 150 stores across Canada (today there are over 500). In 1984, when they had 48 stores, Tom purchased co-founder Frank O'Dea's shares and then sold the entire chain in 1989 after having opened 150 stores.

"The business world is homophobic and it's institutionalized. It was scary at the beginning. I came out coporately in 1980, when I was president. We only had 35 to 40 stores back then, but we were the first, before Starbucks, before everybody..."

Tom is also a philanthropist - supporting gay causes such as Casey House AIDS Hospice and the Metropolitan Community Church.

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