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Harrington School of Communication and Media

Advisory Board

Thomas Shanks

President, The Ethics Company
San Jose, CA

Thomas Shanks, Ph.D., is a nationally-recognized organizational development consultant and leadership coach, who specializes in building strengths-based, values-centered, ethically-grounded organizational cultures. His particular expertise is in building and re-building trust with external and internal stakeholders.

Since 2006, he has been President of the Ethics Company (San José, CA), which he founded in 1992 as Thomas Shanks Consulting. The Ethics Company partners with governmental, corporate, and non-profit organizations and individuals to deliver workshops, facilitation, conflict resolution, code development, and a variety of other customized solutions to support individuals and organizations.

From 1982 to 2007, he was a full-time faculty member at Santa Clara University. As an Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department (1982-1988), he founded the undergraduate Communication Department and served as its first Department Chair (1985-1991). In 1988, he became the department's first tenured Associate Professor (1988-2007) and taught undergraduate courses in communication ethics, new technologies, public policy, survey research, journalism, television production, and graduate courses in Engineering Ethics.

As Senior Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences (1990-1995), responsible for faculty and staff resources and budgets, he played a key role in re-launching the College of Arts and Sciences, serving some 4000 undergraduate and graduate students and supervising a staff of 300. He led the College's comprehensive strategic planning process, working with 30 unique departments and programs; developed a revenue/expenditure system, balanced the College's budgets, and developed the summer school into a profit center to improve teaching and research funding.

From 1985-2002, he was closely associated with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. He was a founding member of the Center's Steering Committee and as Executive Director (1992-1999) led the Center to national prominence as an exemplary program for faculty, students, and the local community. With off-campus partners, he established, funded, and staffed award-winning programs in healthcare, education, law, business, government, and technology. As Director of Business and Public Policy Programs (1999-2000), and Senior Fellow in Business Ethics and Public Policy (2000-2002), he developed a unique relationship with the City of Santa Clara, has worked closely with other California Cities, was a Senior Scholar with the Washington, D.C., Ethics Resource Center (1999-2002) and served as an expert witness in two legal cases involving ethics.

In 1999, the San Jose Mercury News recognized his ethics work by naming him as one of the Millennium 100, approximately 100 people over the last century who have "made Silicon Valley what it is today" and wrote, "As Executive Director from 1992-1999, Shanks elevated the (Ethics) Center into the region's standard bearer for teaching the value of ethical conduct – not only in high technology, but also in the health industry, government, banking, public service and other disciplines" (S.J. Mercury News, December 19, 1999.)

Since 1998, Shanks has been ethics consultant to the City of Santa Clara (CA) for a unique non-partisan, nonpolitical educational program in ethical decision-making and values-based management for local government officials, City staff, and candidates for political office. The International City Management Association chose the Santa Clara program as one of its "Best Practices Case Studies" in 2000. In 2002 and then again in 2007, the League of California Cities honored the City's programs in campaign ethics and "Vote Ethics" with the Helen Putnam Award for Excellence. In 2002, the United Nations included Santa Clara's program as one of just two "best practice" programs in campaign ethics world-wide.

In 2004-2005, he partnered with the City of Milpitas (CA) on developing and implementing a Code of Ethics and a unique accountability process for public officials and candidates. In its first year, that program was honored by the Small Cities Association. He has also worked extensively with the Santa Clara County Library System, the County's Early Childhood Local Planning Council, and conducted ethics and team-building workshops for the League of California Cities, and the Cities of Sunnyvale, San Carlos, Mountain View, and San Mateo, Leadership Santa Clara, Leadership Los Gatos, and the Counties of Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma, and Santa Barbara. In late 2007, he began on-going work with the Cities of Atascadero and Rancho Palos Verdes on conflict resolution, teambuilding, and public trust. In 2010, he began an on-going relationship with the City of Palo Alto to build a transformational leadership program to foster public trust, good government, and an ethically-grounded employee organization committed to serving the people of Palo Alto.

His corporate clients have included Juniper Networks, the Charles Schwab Corporation, Edwards Lifesciences Inc., the Investment Management Consultants' Association, and the start-up technology company, Propel, whose ethics and values program was featured in a cover story in SV (Silicon Valley), the Sunday magazine of the San Jose Mercury News ("Value Judgments: Do Well or Do Right?", April 16, 2000, pp. 8-16.) From 1993-2002, he advised the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, on the integration of ethics throughout the museum. In 1995, he established the Applied Ethics Center at O'Connor Hospital and served as the Chair of its Steering Committee until 2002.

Shanks has delivered hundreds of workshops, programs, and keynote addresses. He writes regularly about ethics, values, and communication. He authored or co-authored a series of articles and cases (especially Everyday Ethics, Thinking Ethically, Framework for Ethical Decision-Making) for the Markkula Center's Issues in Ethics, which have been distributed widely through the Internet. He is currently writing a book, titled: At Our Best: Local Governments, Ethics, and Public Trust.

From 1967-1999, Shanks was a member of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, a Roman Catholic group of priests and brothers with a specialty in education. He served as a Jesuit priest from 1977-1999. He has a B.A. in Philosophy and Psychology from Saint Louis University (1971), an M.S. in Education from Fordham University in New York City (1975), a Master of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (1977), and a Ph.D. in Communication Theory and Research from Stanford University (1985). He serves on the Executive Advisory Board of the Harrington School of Communication at the University of Rhode Island (2010-present) and volunteers time with the Local Early Education Planning Council for Santa Clara County.