Tom Coulter

A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Tom Coulter’s appearance at the 1932 Summer Olympics in the hurdling event was only a small part of a long and varied career. The younger brother of two-time Stanley Cup champion Art Coulter, hockey was Tom’s first calling and he achieved his first major success as a defenseman with St. John’s College in 1927, when his club took the Senior School Series Hockey Championship. After moving to Pittsburg, he attended Carnegie Mellon University and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in engineering 1933 and a Master’s in Economics in 1935 from the University of Chicago. In the meantime, he was very active in athletics, playing halfback for the university American football team, captaining the track team, winning the 440 m hurdles event at the 1932 Canadian Championships and running the same event in Los Angeles for the 1932 Games, where he was disqualified after knocking down four hurdles. He held records at Carnegie Mellon in the 120-yard low and high hurdles, as well as the 220-yard low hurdles and the quarter mile.

Coulter also played hockey, but after nearly a decade off the ice in any major way, his goal was more so to pay for his tuition at business school than to undertake a serious career in the sport. After being signed with the Chicago Black Hawks, the same team that his brother played on at the time, Tom played one game before being demoted to the minor league Oklahoma City Warriors. After a serious leg injury and six games with another minor league team, the Cleveland Falcons, he ended his hockey career at the end of the 1934-1935 season and finished his business degree. Soon after, he began a career with Armco.

For the rest of his life, Coulter developed his career in business and became a luminary in the field. He was the president of Executives Club of Chicago from 1948 through 1953, as well as heading the Sales and Marketing Executives Club of Chicago from 1948 through 1956. For 27 years, beginning in 1954, he was Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry. His contributions to the development of global trade won him awards and accolades from Great Britain, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Japan, while his development of Chicago as an international center of commerce won him praise at home, including an Award of Merit from Carnegie Mellon, a Citation for Public Service from the University of Chicago, and the establishment of several scholarships in his honor. He died in December 2003, at a hospital that he helped establish, at the age of 92. Amidst all of that, however, he played hockey once more in his life, playing one game for Australia’s St. George’s IHC while working abroad.

Personal Best: 400H – 55.4 (1932).