Meet Tom Winters, Your New Attorney General

Governor Strickland just announced that Tom Winters will take over as Ohio’s Attorney General now that Marc Dann is gone.

I went hunting for some information about Tom and came up with this bio from Dann’s Transition Team documents…

Thomas R. Winters
Partner, Columbus Office, Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP
J.D. Capital University Law School, Columbus, Ohio 1984
A.B. Ohio Dominican College, Columbus, Ohio 1972

Mr. Winters is a partner in the Columbus office of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP. He represents governments, businesses and trade associations on legislative matters at the national, state, local and administrative agency levels.

Mr. Winters served for over 10 years as a top assistant and Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, including terms as Clerk of the House (1975-1978;1982), Executive Secretary of the House (1974 and 1983 to 1984), and Majority Counsel (legal counsel for the House of Representatives, 1984 to 1986). As a result of holding these positions and working very closely with current and past members of the Ohio House and Ohio Senate, Mr. Winters has developed personal contacts at every level of Ohio’s government, and with members of Congress.

As an attorney with Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, he has handled matters such as environmental, tax, labor, hospital, health care, higher education law and funding, utility deregulation, tort reform, and consumer legislation; administrative rulemaking; lobbying; and environmental permitting; and government contract work.
Mr. Winters is a member of the Ohio Ballot Board (1985 to present), currently serving as its Vice Chairman. Mr. Winters was the Law Director for the Village of Urbancrest, Ohio (1998). He served from 1988 to 1995 as a member of the Board of Trustees of Shawnee State University and two terms as Chairman of the Board (1993-1994).

Recently, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Ohio Dominican University where he was also a member of the National Alumni Board. He has also served as a member of the Ohio Historical Society Foundation Board (1993-2000); a former member of the Board of Directors of the Ohio Youth in Government Program; and a former member of the BalletMet Advocacy Committee. Mr. Winters is a Director and Treasurer of the Thomas More Society and a Director of the Board of the Ohio Expenditure Council. He has consulted on many legislative, judicial and statewide candidate and issue campaign committees. In 1999 he was appointed to the Executive Order of the Ohio Commodore by the Governor and was elected this year as the organization’s Fleet Commander/Vice President. He is active in that organization which exists to promote commerce and international trade between Ohio and the World.