Thomas D. Rogers

Thomas Rogers has more than thirty years’ experience designing and sculpting medals and coins. After serving in the Navy for four years, Rogers earned an associate’s degree in commercial art, and in the 1970s worked for the Medallic Art Company, where he developed his technique for carving directly into a plaster mold. The process gives him more control over details, helps him work quickly, and allows him to forgo the plasteline modeling clay favored by many medallic sculptors. In 1990, he spent a year at Medalcraft Mint, in Wisconsin, and from 1991 to 2001 worked as an engraver for the United States Mint, designing the reverse sides of the U.S. gold dollar coin (the Sacagawea dollar), and the Maryland, Massachusetts, and South Carolina state quarters. Over the years, Rogers has won numerous prestigious competitions and commissions, including the Gerald and Betty Ford Congressional medal, the Smithsonian Institution 150th anniversary coin, the 100th anniversary medal for the American Numismatic Association, and two commemorative coins celebrating the Library of Congress bicentennial in 2000. Rogers lives and works in Oregon as a freelance sculptor and medalist.