Tom Mara is the executive director of KEXP, a Seattle non-profit arts organization at Seattle center with a mission to enrich your life by championing music and discovery at 90.3 FM and around the world at www.KEXP.org.

Tom spent his first twenty years of life in Germany, thanks to his American father’s dedication to teaching oversees and his mother escaping from East Berlin. After a stint as a club DJ in Munich, Tom completed a journalism degree at the University of Washington. Tom began his radio career at KCMU 90.3FM at the University of Washington in the late 1980s and became station manager in 1993. Later, he managed the joint corporate support programs for KUOW 94.9FM and KCMU 90.3FM. In 1999, Tom headed to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to manage the corporate support program at WXPN-FM. Tom came back to Seattle a year later to build what is now known as KEXP, formerly KCMU. Tom is a founding member of the Seattle Music Commission and currently serves on the Community Development Round Table (CDRT).

Tom has two grown daughters and his wife Mary is the director of libraries for City University of Seattle in South Lake Union which is where Tom recently completed his Masters of Arts in Leadership.