Tech businessman and vet Leonard Tharpe to speak at APSU Military and Veteran Recognition Ceremony May
(Posted April 22, 2019)
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Leonard Tharpe, a U.S. Army veteran and Austin Peay State University alumnus, will be the guest speaker at APSU’s Spring 2019 Military and Veteran Recognition Ceremony next month.
The ceremony, set for 5 p.m. on May 1, in the Morgan University Center Ballroom, honors Austin Peay’s graduating students who are either veterans, reservists or active-duty military personnel. As part of the ceremony, each student will receive a red, white and blue graduation cord and one of the University’s special military coins. The event is open to the public.
Austin Peay is the state’s largest provider of higher education to military-affiliated students, with 2,659 enrolled students having a military connection in the fall of 2018. The University serves a larger percentage of these individuals than any other University, and in 2011, Austin Peay developed a military coin to honor those students.
Tharpe is a graduate of Austin Peay’s ROTC program, and he went on to serve 20 years in the U.S. Army. In the Army he worked in the areas of information technology, acquisition and procurement, communications-electronics, and field artillery. His military assignments included the Pentagon where he served at the Army Office of the Chief Information Officer, the Army Strategic and Advanced Computing Center and the Army Artificial Intelligence Center.
Tharpe has more than 35 years of experience in various areas of computer science and information technologies, serving in both technical and management positions. He founded and served as president and CEO of Brandon Technology Consulting, Incorporated (BTC). BTC provided information technology services to the Department of Defense and federal, state and local governments and a wide range of commercial and nonprofit organizations.
Tharpe is an adjunct professor at Austin Peay and Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville. He is married to Stephanie Tharpe, who also attended APSU. They have one son, Brandon.
For more information on the ceremony or APSU’s military coin, contact Carol Clark, APSU assistant vice president for community and government relations, at clarkc@apsu.edu.
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