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Coburn, Tom

U.S. Senate
Republican
Began Senate Service: 2005

Born on March 14, 1948, in Casper, Wyoming, Coburn was raised in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and graduated from Central High School in 1966. He received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Oklahoma State University in 1970. He worked as a manufacturing manager at the Ophthalmic Division, Coburn Optical Industries in Colonial Heights, Virginia, from 1970 to 1978.

He returned to Oklahoma and entered the University of Oklahoma Medical School, where he graduated in 1983. Coburn interned in general surgery at Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Oklahoma City, and completed his residency in family practice at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith. He returned to Muskogee, and specialized in family medicine, obstetrics, and allergy. Coburn, and his associates, serve more than 15,000 patients for whom he has personally delivered almost 4,000 babies.

Coburn was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma’s Second Congressional District in 1994, and was re-elected in 1996 and 1998. Following his third term in the House, he returned to Oklahoma and continued his medical practice. In 2002 President George W. Bush appointed Coburn to serve as co-chair of the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

In 2004 Coburn won election to the U.S. Senate, replacing retiring Republican Don Nickles, who had served in the Senate since his election on November 4, 1980. He currently serves on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Judiciary; and Indian Affairs committees.

Coburn and his wife, Carolyn, have three children and four grandchildren.