John Spencer Sharp (born July 28, 1950) is an American politician from Texas who served as the chancellor of the Texas A&M University System from 2011 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Comptroller of Texas from 1991 to 1999, a Railroad Commissioner of Texas from 1987 to 1991, and a member of the Texas Legislature from 1979 to 1987.
Sharp is also a principal in the Austin office of the Dallas-based Ryan & Company, a tax consulting firm. In 2005, he was appointed as chairman of the Texas Tax Reform Commission. He was appointed by Rick Perry and the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents as the 14th Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System in 2011, serving until his retirement in 2025.
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Education and early life
The son of an oil field worker and a school teacher, Sharp grew up in the small farming community of Placedo, Texas. In 1972, Sharp earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Texas A&M University in College Station, where he was a member of Squadron 6 in the Corps of Cadets and was elected
class president his sophomore year, and eventually Student Body President. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserves. He belongs to American Legion Post 76 in Austin.
In 1976, Sharp received a master's degree in Public Administration from Texas State University in San Marcos while working full-time in Austin with the Legislative Budget Board. In 1978, Sharp returned to Victoria, Texas, where he opened a real estate firm with a partner, the former County Commissioner Gene Martin.
Political career
Early career
In 1973, Sharp started working as an analyst for the Texas Legislative Budget Board. He was selected by the Lt. Governor William P. Hobby Jr. to be on the 10-man committee that implemented zero-based budgeting.
Sharp began his political career in 1975 as the chief campaign aide in Phil Gramm's campaign for the 1976 U.S. Senate election in Texas. After being asked by The Bryan-College Station Eagle why he decided to take the job, he was quoted, "A perfect set of examples is the federal government's involvement with the brucellosis program and forced busing. I think Gramm has the courage to stop things like that."
Texas Legislature
In 1978, Sharp ran unopposed and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives from the 40th District in Victoria and was later named one of the best newcomers to the House by Texas Monthly, along with Bill Messer. Just a few weeks after his re-election for a third two-year term in the general election of 1982, he ran for the seat left open in the Texas Senate in the special election that took place after John Wilson had won re-election despite already being dead.
He won the special election runoff against Tim Von Dohlen and served a full four-year term in the Texas Senate. He was appointed to the several committees, including the Senate Committee on Finance in 1985. He was elected to the Texas Railroad Commission in 1986.
In 1985, while in the state legislature, Sharp proposed a law restricting abortion rights in Texas. Then-State Treasurer Ann Richards helped kill the bill. When he ran for statewide office, Sharp moderated his anti-abortion views.
In 1990, Sharp was elected as the 35th State Comptroller of Public Accounts for the State of Texas. He was re-elected in 1994. In 1998, he did not seek a third term as comptroller but instead lost the race for lieutenant governor to Rick Perry, by 2% of the vote. Government Sharp ran for lieutenant governor again in 2002, but was defeated, losing by 6% to David Dewhurst, then the Land Commissioner.
Upon taking office as Comptroller, Sharp pledged to "make government work more like our most successful businesses." During his eight years as Comptroller, Sharp established the Texas Performance Review (TPR), an ongoing audit on state government. During Sharp's two 4-year terms as Comptroller, the TPR changed the way government does business through the Council on Competitive Government. Other programs implemented under the leadership of Sharp during these eight years included:
The Texas Tomorrow Fund: A pre-paid college tuition plan that allows over 80,000 Texas families to pre-pay to lock in the future costs of their children's college tuition.
The Lone Star Card: First recommended by Sharp in 1991. This program switched the state's paper food stamp coupons to computerized bank-type cards.
Senate campaign
On December 4, 2008, Republican U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison announced the creation of an exploratory committee for the Texas governor's race in 2010. Had she won the governorship, Hutchison would have been required to vacate her Senate seat by January 2011. If she were to stay in the Senate and not run for governor, she would have been up for re-election to the Senate in 2012. On December 8, 2008, Sharp became the first Democrat to announce his intention to run for this Senate seat, regardless of Hutchison's decision. Unlike several other candidates for the office, Sharp did not create an exploratory committee but immediately began raising funds and campaigning in 2009. During his campaign for the Senate, he criticized the governor, Rick Perry, for his comments about secession. He said in a statement, "During World War II my father was shot in defense of the greatest country on Earth, and I proudly wore the uniform of a United States Army reserve officer. So I'm offended when it becomes acceptable for anybody to talk about Texas leaving the Union. I'm running for the United States Senate because we need mainstream, common-sense leadership to clean up the mess in Washington, D.C., not a bunch of radical, anti-American rhetoric."
Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System
On August 15, 2011, John Sharp was appointed by Governor Rick Perry and the A&M Board of Regents to be chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. At the time, Sharp had never worked in academia. All the members of the Board of Regents that voted to hire Sharp were appointed by Perry.
In 2012, Sharp announced that A&M was selected to develop one of three U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing. Sharp outsourced the student dining program, landscaping, maintenance, dining and custodial services to private companies, which prompted protests for university employees who feared losing their jobs. Some 1,600 employees of Texas A&M shifted to be employed by Compass Group USA under their contract. Prior to the contract being awarded to Compass Group USA, the company was providing landscaping, building maintenance, custodial and dining services to Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. Sharp also leased land owned by Texas A&M to private developers. He announced a system-wide accountability website known as EmpowerU using software based on the institution-specific accountability website at Texas A&M University. Sharp also added "Texas A&M" to the names of seven agencies and said the names of Prairie View A&M University and Tarleton State University could not be changed as it would require legislation to be passed.
Sharp announced A&M's complete acquisition of Texas Wesleyan University's School of Law and its renaming to Texas A&M University School of Law in August 2013.
In February 2018, two months after Jimbo Fisher was appointed as the head coach of Texas A&M football team, Sharp presented him with a plaque commemorating the Aggies' national championship in the year "20--", telling Fisher, "you get to fill in the date". He played a pivotal role in helping the Texas A&M University System receive a 10-year agreement to co-manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory with the University of California System.
On October 1, 2019, Sharp announced a system-wide ban on vaping, writing in the announcement memo that the "health threat is serious enough that I want to see the ban inside every building, outside space, parking lot, garage and laboratory within the Texas A&M System."
Personal life
In 1978, he married Charlotte Han. They have a son, Spencer, and a daughter, Victoria. Charlotte died in December 2020.
He owns a 1,600-acre ranch 30 minutes from College Station where he raises cattle and goats. After his retirement, he will move to Austin to be close to his children and grandchildren.
Honors & awards
Sharp has received numerous awards. Texas State University presented Sharp with the "Distinguished Alumni Award" in 1996, where he also taught a course on Texas state government for several semesters in the early 2000s. He was awarded the Texas A&M University Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2018.
In 2022, the City of Bryan renamed State Highway 47 into John Sharp Parkway, due to his service at A&M, the development of the RELLIS campus, and Texas A&M's expansions into the city.
List of awards
Best Newcomer in the Texas House of Representatives, Texas Monthly, 1979
Distinguished Alumni Award, Texas State University, 1996
Person of the Year, Rio Grande Guardian, 2015
Distinguished Alumnus Award, Texas A&M University, 2018