Senator Thomas H. Kean, Jr. represents District 21, which includes 16 towns in Morris, Somerset and Union counties. Senator Kean was chosen by his colleagues to serve as the Senate Minority Leader for the 2020-2021 Legislative Session; it is a position he has held since 2008. The senator is a member of the Senate Higher Education, the Senate Commerce and the Legislative Oversight Committees.
He is a Senate appointee to the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the New Jersey Israel Commission, the Legislative Services Commission and the New Jersey Amistad Commission.
Prior to being named to the upper house of the State Legislature in January 2003 to fill a vacancy, Senator Kean was serving his second term in the State Assembly, where he had been Chairman of the Assembly Republican Policy Committee.
Senator Kean was nominated and selected for the inaugural class of the Rodel Fellowship program by The Aspen Institute, where he finished a fellowship program for young public officials focused on ethics and responsibilities of public leadership. In 2002, Kean was named one of only 40 state leaders from the entire nation to be recognized as a Toll Fellow by the Council of State Governments for high achievement and service to state government.
He is an Honorary Member of the Board of Trustees of the Paper Mill Playhouse and the New Jersey Festival Orchestra.
Senator Kean graduated from Dartmouth College in 1990. He has completed his Doctoral Studies, A.B.D., in international relations at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he also received his M.A.L.D. and was employed as a Graduate School instructor. The Senator served in Congressman Bob Frank’s office in Washington, DC; worked for the Environmental Protection Agency during the George H. W. Bush administration; and is a former volunteer firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician.
Senator Kean lives in Westfield with his wife, Rhonda, and their two daughters.