Thomas Tusher

From traveling behind the Iron Curtain to watching the Berlin Wall go up, Tom Tusher took advantage of every opportunity study abroad had to offer. At a time when few American companies had international divisions, Tom returned to the U.S. determined to pursue a career in international business, even if it meant charting his own path. In 1969, he joined Levi Strauss & Company and was instrumental in building the company’s international brand from the ground up – navigating their entry as one of the first American companies into Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia – places he had experienced first-hand while studying abroad. In our interview, Tom explains how studying abroad laid the foundation for his professional success as President and COO of Levi Strauss & Company, and why he supports study abroad scholarships for today’s students.

IES Abroad: What led you to study abroad in Vienna?

Tom Tusher: I was born and raised in Oakland, California, and my parents were not world travelers, but I always had an interest in things outside of California and outside of the Bay Area. It appealed to me to spend some time abroad. I then started to look at what programs were available. IES Abroad stood out from all the rest in terms of being the best of the programs, and it was important to me that I could receive credit for all of the time I would be spending abroad. Vienna didn’t have a specific draw for me going into the process. It was the best program available. That was the main draw. Once I got to Vienna, of course, I loved Vienna!

IES Abroad: You studied in Vienna during a period of continuing recovery after World War II. What was it like to be in Europe at that time?

TT: This was the 1960s, almost twenty years removed from the war, and you would have thought that things would have changed dramatically or have been forgotten. That wasn’t true at all! In the capital of Bucharest, there were billboards with anti-American slogans, basically associating Americans with Nazis. It was amazing! I was struck by how stringent life was for people who were behind the Iron Curtain, how little they had, and how stunted they were in their knowledge of the world by their governments. The other contrast was going into Germany. The West Berlin side of the Wall was either already fully reconstructed or well on its way to being reconstructed. The place was rebuilt. When you went to the East Berlin side, every building was either bombed out or had bullet holes in it. It was incredible to me that within a couple of hundred yards there would be this contrast. It wasn’t just the couple of hundred yards of distance, it was twenty years of time! That had one of the biggest impacts on me.

IES Abroad: What were some of your most memorable experiences studying abroad?

TT: I remember going into Berlin when the Wall was going up. I went into East Berlin, which was easy to do, and even at that time, it was supposedly easy to get out. On my way out, when I got within 100 yards of the Wall, suddenly the German shepherds and the police made it very clear that I wasn’t to come any closer. I suddenly had the sense of what it was like to be behind the Iron Curtain. I was there on a Friday and was planning to leave that same day. When I got ready to board the train to exit, I was told that I had to have a visa to get out. I didn’t need a visa to get in, but I needed one to get out. “Ok, where do I get that?” They said that I had to go to the other side of town. It was an hour to closing, and if I didn’t get there in time to get my visa, I was going to be stuck for the weekend. That was another experience of not having the freedom we are used to. In any event, I did make it in time and got out. I made a point when the Wall came down of going back to Berlin. I saw it go up, and I saw it go down. 

IES Abroad: You began your career at Levi Strauss in 1969 and went on to become President and COO. How did studying abroad influence your career path?

TT: We traveled a lot behind the Iron Curtain. I went to Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. That certainly influenced me when I got into my corporate career. Those were the three first Eastern European countries Levi Strauss set up in. Hungary was number one. We were one of the first American corporations to go into Hungary, and subsequently into Czechoslovakia and Poland. We set up a large production facility in Poland that is still there today. Studying abroad influenced my life, there is no question about it.

When I came back from Vienna, my career objective changed focus to international business. Interestingly, I ran into one of my classmates from IES Abroad while standing in line to register for business school at Stanford. We were the only two people in our class at Stanford who had an interest in international business. My classmate went to work for an international bank while I was interviewing with consumer product companies with the objective to be part of the international division. What I discovered is that very few corporations at that time did much internationally or, if they did, they did it through third party distributors. They didn’t have their own programs. The only one that did was Colgate Palmolive, so I went to work for them after graduating from Stanford.

IES Abroad: Were there lessons learned in Vienna that helped you in the early days of your career?

TT: I think the main thing was being exposed to cultural diversity abroad, which led me to want to pursue an international career. It was a unique opportunity, since very few people were pursuing international business careers. Nor were there many American companies that had programs focused internationally. Whereas the world has changed today. My belief, at the time, was that my exposure to international cultures was going to benefit me in a business career. You could just see that the world was changing and that there was going to be a bigger, broader world. Having had the opportunity to be an early adopter at the time was going to be advantageous. It turned out to be the case.  

IES Abroad: How important has having an international perspective been for you in your career?

TT: Huge! When I joined Colgate Palmolive, their company, which was always thought of as an American company, did 55% of sales volume from overseas but over 100% of their profit came from international. Therefore, the international part of Colgate was significantly important to them. They had a full-scale international program where they brought in six to 12 new graduates and put them through a training program and then assigned them to posts overseas. This is what I wanted to do, so it was a perfect company for me to join. I was exposed to a highly, highly, highly, internationally global organization. When I joined Levi’s, on the other hand, it was not at all. It was only a $200 million dollar business – a small business – almost all in the U.S., with a small amount of export business. They had a president of international, whom I was working for initially. Of course, the brand was iconic, but they had to build the brand internationally. It was a real opportunity for me to grow the international business from the ground floor. I had assignments in Mexico, Australia, the UK and Europe, and then returned to San Francisco to run the entire International Business.

IES Abroad: What is one thing you learned while abroad that remains a constant in your life today?

TT: If I had to put it down to a couple of words, it would be “cultural diversity.” It made me more tolerant of different cultures, whatever they may be. Traveling through Turkey, an Islamic country, as a college student, I had met a lot of Turkish Muslim students. When I was in Morocco, same thing. Even traveling in France, I experienced when they were having problems with the independence of Algeria. I stayed in hostels and met a lot of Algerians students. Cultural tolerance and diversity is probably one of the things I took away most from my experiences in Europe – learning to get along with people and tolerance of other ways of thinking, other religions, and simply cultural differences. I met some wonderful people. I got invited into homes to have meals. Sometimes it was a student who invited me home who spoke some English and their family would speak no English, but we always found a way to communicate.

IES Abroad: Since retiring from Levi Strauss in 1997, you and your wife, Pauline, have devoted yourself to philanthropy, including establishing the Thomas Tusher Scholarship for Study Abroad at Haas School of Business. What motivated you to pay it forward, enabling students for whom study abroad would be out of their reach financially, to have this life changing experience?

TT: I didn’t come from a strong economic background. That is an understatement in terms of “lack thereof.” I recognize how expensive college has gotten. I have been very fortunate to have done very well in the corporate world and have the financial ability to do something. Sometimes you try to do things that mirror your own background. In my case, it was having had the opportunity to study abroad and how it impacted me in terms of my business career. Having come out of the very parochial U.S. environment and seeing that in a lot of the students I met when I was on the Advisory Board at the University of California-Berkeley, I wanted to try to encourage students to study abroad, particularly those interested in a business career. This is why we started the scholarship at the Haas School of Business, rather than the full university. It was to take students interested in a business career in the undergraduate program and give them an opportunity to have some time abroad at an early age, recognizing that not everybody necessarily would be desirous of an international career or would come back and pursue one. But at least it would broaden their horizons in whatever they were going to do for the rest of life or their business career, by giving them exposure to other cultures and other ways of thinking.

IES Abroad: What advice do you have for students who are studying abroad today?

TT: For students at large: apply to go abroad. Many students do not even begin to realize what an opportunity study abroad is and all that they would get out of it. For students studying abroad: be adventuresome. Get out there, meet people, see the world, and experience! I stood in line the day before for some of the special operas in Vienna. I am not an opera buff nor have I become one since, but it was important to me to experience some of the culture of Vienna. It was stepping outside of my comfort zone. I would encourage students studying abroad to also step outside their comfort zone, to go find things that they might not even know they have an interest in. Having traveled throughout Europe, going through the great museums of the world on my own, I began developing a greater appreciation of the art world. When I came back from Vienna, I enrolled in some art appreciation courses to develop an appreciation of the cultural things that probably would have taken many more years to develop had I not had that exposure. I continue to have a life engaged with the international world, with homes in New Zealand and Mexico. We own a lodge in New Zealand (www.blanketbay.com) where we host guests from around the world.