Louis Tharp

After running a successful international public relations, advertising, and marketing company for nearly 20 years, www.claymarketing.com and working for some of the largest international PR and marketing agencies specializing in maritime, technology, health and dot coms, Louis Tharp became a social entrepreneur in 1999.

He co-founded CreakyJoints, www.creakyjoints.org an international service organization and social media site for people with arthritis, RedPatch, www.redpatch.org, an advocacy organization for people with psoriasis, and CreakyBones, www.creakybones.org, a social networking site for people with osteoporosis which are now a part of the Global Healthy Living Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit patient advocacy an access to care organization.

He is also active in eliminating fail first practices within the healthcare industry where people are forced to fail on insurer-specified medications before they can take the prescription drugs their physicians prescribe,www.failfirsthurts.org.

Previously, Louis Tharp was a contract writer for The New York Times and other daily newspapers. He published his first book, The Complete Manager’s Guide to Promotional Merchandise (Dow-Jones Irwin) in 1989.

As the swim coach for the U.S. Military Academy Triathlon Team (West Point, NY), Tharp shared his training methods in his 2007 book, Overachiever’s Diary: How the Army Triathlon Team Became World Contenders, published by Total Immersion, www.totalimmersion.net.

An elite swimmer himself, Louis Tharp won two gold and two silver medals at the 2006 Gay Games, www.gaygames.org and two silver and two bronze medals at the 2009 Outgames, www.outgames.org in Copenhagen.

He served on the Board of Visitors for the College of Business Administration at Butler University, Indianapolis, www.butler.edu where he graduated with both a B.S. and B.A. in Journalism in 1972.

In 2012 he accepted a service position with the Army.