Military Hero, Medal of Honor Recipient Named Leader-in-Residence
for 2007-08 Academic Year
October 1, 2007
Leo K. Thorsness, retired United
States Air Force Colonel, Medal of Honor recipient and POW,
will serve as a leader-in-residence for the 2007-08
academic year at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies
at the University of Richmond.
Thorsness joined the U.S. Air Force in 1951 at age 18
and became a jet pilot during the Vietnam War. During an
1967 mission, his 93rd, he was shot down over North
Vietnam. Injured and captured, he spent six years in the
“Hanoi Hilton,” a prisoner-of-war camp. When the war
ended in 1973, Thorsness returned stateside. On Oct. 15,
1973, President Richard Nixon presented him with the
Congressional Medal of Honor, America’s highest award
for military heroism.
Thorsness later served as director of civic affairs for
California-based Litton Industries from 1979 to 1985. He
then moved to Washington and served as a state senator
from 1988 to 1992. In retirement, he took a leadership
role in working with the
Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The foundation
engages in a range of projects to educate Americans,
particularly youth, about the values the Medal of Honor
embodies.
In 2004, the University of Richmond announced the
establishment of an endowed chair in leadership and
ethics named in honor of Thorsness. The Colonel Leo K.
and Gaylee Thorsness Endowed Chair in Ethical Leadership
was funded by a generous $1 million gift. The chair honors Thorsness
for extraordinary heroism.
Thorsness received a bachelor’s degree from the
University of Omaha, and he went on to earn a master’s
degree in systems management at the University of
Southern California. He is married to the former Gaylee
Anderson, and they are the parents of a daughter, Dawn.
He and his wife make their home in Saddlebrooke,
Arizona.
The leader-in-residence interacts
with Jepson students and faculty in formal and informal
ways. The leader-in-residence program has invited local,
state and national leaders to interact with students in
formal and informal settings since the school’s founding
in 1992. >More
Col. Thorsness' biography
About the
Congressional
Medal of Honor
UTube Interview with Col Thorsness
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