Thomas G Welch was born in Birmingham, England on 25^th May 1946. The only son of Joseph and Ellen Welch who owned Tadem Auto Export Ltd. who exported European classic and sports cars to the USA.

 

The family relocated to Pennsylvania, USA in 1958 where Thomas received most of his formal education.

Founder TM Autoparts Inc.

Thomas married Childhood sweetheart Mary Redding in August of 1969 and shortly afterwards started TM Autoparts inc. which for a period worked alongside his parents business. Whereas Tadem Auto Export (now renamed to Tadem Auto Import inc.) Imported complete cars, Thomas had found a niche market in supplying hard to find spare parts for those cars.

TM Autoparts grew throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s to have offices in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, London, Lyon and Copenhagen supplying auto parts for old and rare cars throughout the Western hemisphere.

 

Mary Welch was killed in an auto accident in August 2004 and Thomas continues to run the company on his own.

 

In 2005 the company was estimated to be worth approximately $38M