Tom Earnhardt

Tom Earnhardt is a graduate of Davidson College and University of North Carolina School of Law. He is an attorney with experience in government as an Assistant Attorney General and Assistant Secretary of the NC Department of Administration. Working with Attorney General Robert Morgan, Tom was one of the first attorneys to work for North Carolina in the “new” area of Environmental Law in 1971. In Governor James Holshouser’s administration he worked with Secretary William Bondurant to protect the New River and to purchase much of the land that is now part of Cape Lookout National Seashore. Earnhardt also worked in the corporate arena and in private practice. Finally, Tom had more than twenty years in the classroom and retired as a full professor. At North Carolina Central University School of Law he taught Property, Business Associations, and Environmental Law.

In Earnhardt’s “other life” he has been, and continues to be, an avid naturalist and advocate for the natural and cultural resources of North Carolina. Tom is a keen observer and photographer of wild things and places. His conservation-related travel and speaking engagements have taken him across North America, the British Isles, Europe, and Asia–including Russia and China. In North Carolina, Tom has been a keynote speaker at many environmental, regulatory, civic, state park, and science organizations over the years. Over the past fourteen years Tom has crisscrossed North Carolina researching, writing, and coproducing more than eighty episodes of the natural science television series Exploring North Carolina. Earnhardt also completed a natural history of North Carolina for the University of North Carolina Press titled Crossroads of the Natural World (2013).