W. Thomas Johnson

An only child, Tom Johnson was born in Macon, Georgia. His father, plagued by ill health, was an 'odd jobs' man, and his mother worked in a grocery store. As a child, Johnson helped his parents by selling watermelons in the summer and wood in the winter. Johnson's mother was a major influence on his life. 'She instilled in me at an early age a sense of confidence and a feeling that I could do whatever I wanted to do if I worked hard and applied myself,' he says.

In the ninth grade, Johnson got a part-time job with the Macon Telegraph-News, where he worked throughout high school and became an outstanding young journalist. The newspaper's publisher, Peyton Anderson, set up a college scholarship for him provided he continued to work for the paper, which he did each weekend during his four years of college. Upon his graduation in 1959, Johnson'who aspired to be a newspaper publisher'was advised by Anderson to get an MBA. Anderson then paid for Johnson to attend Harvard Business School.

After graduating from Harvard, Johnson was tapped as a White House Fellow. He served under Bill Moyers, then as press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson until 1969. He later helped LBJ set up his presidential library in Texas.

Johnson served as executive vice president of a television station and the Texas Broadcasting Corporation. When the Times Mirror Company purchased that station, Johnson became editor of the Dallas Times-Herald, a Times Mirror property. In 1977, he left Dallas to become president of the Los Angeles Times. He was named publisher and CEO three years later.

In 1990, Johnson became chairman, president, and CEO of the CNN News Group, beginning his new job the day before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. 'It was a spectacular initiation,' he says. At that time, CNN claimed 200 million viewers. For the next 10 years, Johnson presided over a dramatic expansion of CNN's newsgathering operations and led the network into the age of digital interactivity; CNN's audience eventually grew to more than 800 million viewers worldwide. Johnson once said of his position at CNN, 'It was a lifetime dream come true for me.'

Johnson advises young people to 'work hard and do right. We need people who are compassionately committed to their work and who do it with high standards of quality and integrity.'

Johnson is especially happy with the Horatio Alger Association's desire to help the next generation of leaders. 'I am impressed with the commitment of the members to give back to their communities and serve as role models'trying to improve the next generation of leadership,' he says. 'That's what this program is all about.'