Thomas W. Shaver

As the founder and CEO of Ad Astra, Tom has been responsible for the strategic direction of much of the development of Ad Astra’s software and reporting systems that have been licensed to over 800 college and university campuses.

He is the third generation of the Shaver family associated with The Shaver Partnership, the consulting and architecture firm from which Ad Astra was formed. His father, John Shaver, was an innovative educational architect and planner who has designed over 300 educational facilities, won national design awards, and has been featured in several national publications. Tom began working with his father in 1987. Their consulting work has evolved to include an innovative, capacity-based model for space management and student-centric model for course offering management that are foundational to Ad Astra’s offerings. Tom is actively involved as a lead consultant leveraging these models in a change management framework that uses data to justify change and track progress/business impact on college and university campuses.

In 2004, Tom authored a United States business process patent application that was recently approved. The patent protects Ad Astra’s inventions in the scheduling software market including: student-specific course demand analysis, historical analysis of course demand and student availability, and high-impact schedule refinement.