Tom Darden II

Tom Darden is the Chief Executive Officer of Cherokee Investment Partners, a private equity fund that invests in large-scale real estate projects that effectively clean up and reuse "brownfields" (land that is contaminated with industrial pollutants) while constructing efficient, healthy buildings that help communities create long-term value. Beginning in 1984, he served for 16 years as the Chairman of Cherokee Sanford Group, the largest privately-held brick manufacturing company in the United States and previously the Southeast's largest soil remediation company.

From 1981 to 1984, he was a consultant with Bain & Company in Boston.  From 1977 to 1978, he worked as an environmental planner for the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in Seoul, which he was a Henry Luce Foundation Scholar.

Mr. Darden is on the Boards of Woodberry Forest School, Shaw University and the University of North Carolina's environmental department. He was Chairman of the Research Triangle Transit Authority and served two terms on the N.C. Board of Transportation through appointments by the Governor and the Speaker of the House. Mr. Darden serves on the Board of Governors of Research Triangle Institute in Research Triangle Park, NC.

Mr. Darden earned an MRP in environmental planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a JD from Yale Law School and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. His 1976 undergraduate thesis analyzed the environmental impact of third world development and his 1981 Yale thesis addressed interstate acid rain air pollution.