Tom Krieglstein

Thomas Werner Krieglstein (born December 5, 1980) is an American entrepreneur And Co-founder of Swift Kick with Kevin Prentiss. The pair have twice been voted the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities' (APCA) Campus Speaker of the Year (2007 & 2008), and were Ideablob grant winners for their Red Rover FreshMen orientation software. In college, Krieglstein was the first College of DuPage student to be named to the USA Today; ALL-USA Academic First Team, and gave the commencement speech as an Outstanding Graduate at both his alma mater.

Krieglstein has also gained notoriety due to considerable media coverage, as the first person in line for President-elect Barack Obama's election night rally and with his wife Annie Colbert as the third runner up couple for The Today Show's Race to the Altar.

Biography

Krieglstein was born in the small farm town of Lawrence in southwest Michigan, where he spent the first 9 years of his life. Upon turning 10, he had moved with his family to DuPage county in west suburban Chicago where Krieglstein attended both high school and college. Krieglstein's inspiration for work with college activity boards stems from his own lack of school involvement early in life which he says led to a 'C' average high school GPA. However, the desire to help others was something Krieglstein found an outlet for early in life with involvement in the group MWAH, known for other now famous former troupe members like Freddy Rodriguez and Kel Mitchell. After graduating from Glenbard South High School, Krieglstein attended the College of DuPage (COD) where he went from a 'C' average to graduating top of his class. He did this by getting involved as executive producer of the student activities board where he implemented an Altar Ego concert series, working on the college selection committee for a new public safety officer, assisting in a prairie restoration effort at the Danada Forest Preserve, working as an organizer for the local Million Mom March, serving as treasurer of the honor society, as well as graduating with a 4.0/4.0 GPA. Krieglstein also credits caring teachers at COD with helping him uncover his hidden leadership skills.

Involvement with school activities and high academic marks led to Krieglstein receiving two great honors while at COD. The first was being named to the USA Today; ALL-USA Academic First Team, a nationally competitive and prestigious honor only awarded to 20 students each year. Krieglstein was the first student from COD to have received this honor. The second honor was to give the commencement speech as the school's male Outstanding Graduate. Krieglstein would go on to repeat this accomplishment when he again won the honor of giving the commencement speech at Aurora University (AU) two years later. While attending AU he incorporated his first company and graduate from the university with a BA in Business Management. In addition to studying at COD and AU, Krieglstein spent six months in Berlin, Germany studying German at the Goethe-Institut.

Krieglstein currently lives in Chicago with his wife Annie Colbert and their two cats. He is the son of prominent academics Maryann and Werner Krieglstein. Krieglstien is the second youngest of five brothers: Robin (07/01/71), married to Suruchi, is CEO at GoalTribe, Inc.; Mark (02/25/75) is a film director, and with his equal Sara Yule, are co-owners of Wiggle Puppy Productions; Daniel (03/31/79) is a PhD candidate for Clinical Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology and currently living with his life partner Andrea Trocchio; and Michael (09/02/84) who is studying contrabass and music education at North Central College.

Swift Kick

In 2004 Krieglstein and fellow speaker Kevin Prentiss co-founded Swift Kick with the stated goal of "increasing student engagement in education". A primary focus of the company is to provide leadership workshops for student leaders which provide them with the skills and tools necessary for increasing student involvement. Their Dance Floor Theory leadership training is The Primary module for this effort. Swift kick also provides student and teacher training for effective and safe use of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. It was the presentation of these modules at the APCA's 2007 and 2008 annual conferences that twice led to Swift Kick being voted Campus Speaker of the Year by the majority of conference attendees (student activity leaders from all across the US).

Following success with their speaking engagements, Swift Kick moved forward with the development of a freshmen orientation software that integrates with Facebook and MySpace known as Red Rover. The Red Rover software began beta testing in 2007 and is now being used at hundreds of colleges and universities across the US. The software was the first winner of Advanta corporation's ideablob.com $10,000 entrepreneur award. Krieglstein said the prize money would be used to pay for hosting fees so the software could be provided to universities and colleges free of charge.

Media exposure

Colbert and Krieglstein taking time out during their Race to the Altar appearance

Today Show's Race to the Altar

Annie Colbert and Thomas Krieglstein began their engagement with Krieglstein proposing in front of three thousand people at a national conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Footage of the proposal was used on The Today Show. The couple tried out for The Today Show's Race to the Altar in 2007 and 2008, having not been married in the intermediate time. Their 2008 appearance garnered considerable media attention in their native Chicago and nationally due to support from the Lupus Foundation of America. Colbert was diagnosed at the age of 17 with lupus, a lifelong and sometimes disabling auto-immune disease. Her struggle to live a fulfilling life in spite of having this disease inspired the Lupus Foundation of America to use its resources to back the couple. The foundation asked for support from members and issued several press releases regarding the couple's efforts. Deeply emotional messages left for the couple on their web site and Facebook group page show that there is a need for a positive public figure with lupus to encourage other young women in their daily battle with not only the physical burdens of the disease, but also the emotional toll that lupus can extract. The couple finished the competition in third place.

Barack Obama's election night rally

Tom and Dan Krieglstein posing as #1 & #2 in line for Barack Obama's election night rally.

Tickets for President-elect Barack Obama's election night rally were made available via email roughly 26 hours before the November 4 event's scheduled start time of 8:30 p.m. CST. Krieglstein printed his ticket upon receiving it and, having voted early, immediately headed to Grant Park. He arrived at the park around 7:30 p.m. on November 3, making him the first person in line for the event. His brother Daniel joined the line around 10:00 p.m., with Joe Musselman (3rd in line) not arriving until 5:30 a.m. The historic nature of the event led to major media from around the world descending on the park looking for stories. The Krieglstein brother's story was covered by the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NBC, MTV, Danish news Ekstra Bladet, Dutch news De Telegraaf, Spain-based El Mundo and Infonacional, Portuguese news Público, Argentine news Canal 7, Korean news SBS, Indonesian news Metro TV, among many other news media from around the world. Krieglstein told reporters that Jane Heckman (described as an adopted Grandmother) organized one of Martin Luther King's only rallies in west suburban Chicago. He described his connection to Obama's election as bringing that family connection full circle in the same way that the election of an openly gay president in 40 years would be for his children.

Facebook Glitch Detection

On March 26, 2007, Krieglstein was interviewed by PC World after he discovered, and reported, a major glitch in Facebook's security which gave him administrative access to various company pages. The list of companies included Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, and the 825,000 strong Star Wars fan page. Krieglstein made a video documentation of the incident that was posted with Allfacebook.com's coverage of the story The viral story quickly went international through PC World and IDG affiliates as well as in a few other news outlets.