Thomas J. Stanley (1944 – February 28, 2015)^[1] was an American writer and business theorist. He was the author and co-author of several award-winning books on America's wealthy, including the New York Times’ best sellers The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind. He served as chief advisor to Data Points, a company founded based on his research and data.^[2] He received a doctorate in business administration from the University of Georgia.^[3] He was on the faculty of the University at Albany, State University of New York. He taught marketing at the University of Tennessee, University of Georgia and Georgia State University (where he was named Omicron Delta Kappa's Outstanding Professor).^[4][5]

Thomas Stanley was born in the Bronx in 1944. His father worked as a subway car driver, while his mother was a homemaker and secretary.^[6] He attended college in Connecticut, doing graduate work at the University of Tennessee. He earned a doctorate at the University of Georgia, and eventually moved to the Atlanta area to teach at Georgia State University. Stanley spent most of his career studying how the financially successful Americans in a wide range of professions and with a varying level of income acquired their wealth on their own.^[7] In 2015 he was killed by a drunk driver at the age of 71.^[8] During his last days, he was working on a book with his daughter, an industrial psychologist, who later finished it.^[7] The book is called The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth, and attributes authorship to Thomas J. Stanley and his daughter, Sarah Stanley Fallaw.