Accession 75-20 - Thomas H McLeod

Thomas Hector McLeod was born in 1918 in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. McLeod attended Brandon College where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. After graduate studies at Indiana University, where he attained his A.M. in 1941, he returned to Brandon College as an Assistant Professor from 1941 – 1944. He received a Masters degree in Public Administration (1948) and a Ph.D. in economics and government (1959). Both of these degrees were from Harvard University. From 1944 to 1952 McLeod worked as a public servant for the Province of Saskatchewan; for Tommy Douglas on many political campaigns and became his first economic advisor. By 1952 he was the Deputy Provincial Treasurer (Deputy Minister of Finance). In 1952 McLeod moved to Saskatoon to become a Professor of Administration and Dean of the College of Commerce at the University of Saskatchewan and in 1964 he returned to Regina to become the first Dean of the new College of Arts and Sciences for the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, a position he held until 1971 when he became Special Advisor on University Affairs and Public Administration to the President of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). From 1974 to 1983 Thomas McLeod worked in the public service of Canada. In a fifteen year span McLeod moved around the world. Turkey, Iran, Africa, Central America, the Carribean, Thailand and Nigeria saw him in roles as a consultant advisor for the Ford Foundation in Turkey (5 months). In Iran in 1961-62, he was advising on the preparation of a national seven-year economic development plan and in 1969 he was a member on the special planning commission for the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. From 1971 to 1975, in Africa, Central America, the Carribean and Thailand, Thomas McLeod worked as a special advisor and later Director of Program Evaluation for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and in 1980-81, while on leave from the Government of Canada, he was the Academic Director of the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute in Ilorin, Nigeria. From 1952 to 1994, in addition to those involvements mentioned above, Thomas McLeod was also involved with the University of Saskatchewan’s University Hospital as a board member and held various posts with the United Church in Saskatoon; he was a member of the Royal Commission on Public Accounting, Saskatchewan; a member of the Minister of Education’s special committee on Adult Education; Chairman of the Royal Commission on Taxation for Saskatchewan; Chairman of the University (of Saskatchewan) Senate Committee on “The Role of the University in the Province”; President of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada; President of the Association of Colleges of Commerce and Business Administration for Canada, and for twenty years, (1974 to 1994), was Treasurer of the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation. Acknowledging the contributions to his profession and his community he was awarded the Honourary Designation of C.A. by the Institute Chartered Accountants, Saskatchewan; the Vanier Medal was awarded by the Institute Public Administration of Canada; from his alma mater, Brandon University, he was awarded an L.L.D., as well as an Alumni Outstanding Service Award, an L.L.D. from the University of Saskatchewan and in 2002 Thomas McLeod received the Order of Canada. McLeod formally retired in 1985 but continued to work on a biography of Tommy Douglas with his son, Ian McLeod. The book, Tommy Douglas: the Road to Jerusalem was published in 1987, he also edited Post Secondary Education in a Technological Society.