| Membership level: Hall of Fame Thomas Trueson Inductee Year 2024 |  |
| Born in Lagrange Illinois December 15th, 1955. The home I grew up in was in unincorporated Hinsdale that was incorporated into the Village of Oak Brook in 1958. I attended Butler elementary school. At the time I was in school the surrounding properties were polo fields, which later became York Woods subdivision. At Butler school I played on the basketball team and participated in Park District activities. Graduating from Butler, I then attended Hinsdale Central High School. Freshman year I participated in cross-country then trying out for the gymnastics team. I was not able to be selected to be a member of the freshman gymnastics team but was allowed to work out with the team ultimately becoming a member of the team sophomore year. By the time senior year concluded I had placed 3rd in state on pommel horse while our team took 2nd place team honors at the Illinois State Meet. I worked hard on earning Dean List honors and received numerous athletic scholarships offers from several large D1 schools. I ultimately had similar scholarship offers from the University of California at Berkley and University of Oregon, selecting Oregon as the best fit for me athletically and academically. While at Oregon I earned a BS in Marketing and Computer Science. Athletically I won an AAU jr. National Championship award, Pac-8 Conference Champion, and two-time NCAA All-American honors. After concluding my collegiate competitive career, I remained at the university as an assistant gymnastics coach working towards my master’s degree. After leaving Oregon, I had determined that coaching was not the career path I wanted to follow. I chose a career in marketing beginning with Western Union. After working for 5 years, I took a job in an upstart direct response marketing firm, working on proprietary strategies with fortune 500 companies. After 5 years with this startup firm, I made a career move with 2 other co-workers to leave and start our own marketing firm. This became The Core Organization. After 17 years of meeting the needs of our large clients, one of my partners and I bought out our 3rd partner and repositioned our company to meet the changing needs of our clients. We continued a successful trajectory until selling the company to a large venture capital group in 2017 in a recapitalization that included continued ownership. The new company was sold once again in 2018 resulting in my retiring in 2020. During the growth of my career, I married Patti Hessler, and we had 4 children. We made the decision to move back to Oak Brook to raise our children where they could enjoy a high level of education and ample athletic and cultural activities as they grew up. All the of our children attended Brook Forest grade school, Butler Jr. High and Hinsdale Central High School. All participated in sports. Our son Kyle joined the gymnastics team, becoming an excellent pommel horse specialist. During his 4 years on the team, I helped coach the pommel horse boys. I also gave back by photographing all the sports my children participated. During this time, I created over 20 videos for a wide range of sports at Hinsdale Central capturing the student athletes in a video montage that were given to athletes after being shown at the end of season banquets recognizing the athletes for their hard work and accomplishments. |
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