His faith, which began with a commitment to Christ at age 16, provides the thread that tightly binds his complex walk with God.
For Tom, reconciling God and science was the easy part. He sees no irony in earning a Ph.D. in applied physics from Drexel University in 1972 thanks to a “God” coincidence. Although his lead professor for his graduate degrees was an agnostic Jewish professor, he was Tom’s greatest mentor. Coincidentally, the next-door neighbor to his science professor was a “very on fire Christian professor” who became his prayer partner: “I see no conflict between faith and science. Reasoning people and people of faith, we can’t separate the two.”
After his freshly minted Ph.D., he went onto to become a professor of physics and computer science. For a time, he also held a seat on the advisory board of Wycliffe Bible translators, which was exploring the use of computers and networking to speed up the cause of Bible translation and literacy. He and his young wife were active in church and Bible study.
By the 1980s, he had moved into industry and joined one of the first artificial intelligence startups in the Silicon Valley. The company flourished and went public with Tom as chairman and CEO. He fed his faith as a pastoral intern for a year and by opening his home and backyard pool to the church youth group, but reconciling his financial responsibilities to shareholders as a CEO with his values as a Christian was sometimes challenging.
At the same time, his marriage began to fail. “I traveled the world but was away from home way too much … as things blew up, I went into a real on-your-knees kind of thing, praying the family would come back together.” Tom was unable to save his marriage but drew on his deep reservoir of faith to recalibrate and seek the balance that had reconciled so many other competing elements of his life. He became the single father of 3 teenagers.
Since then he has quit being a CEO and has gone back to his roots as a chief scientific officer for a technology-based investment company. 25 years ago he met Laurie, his wife. They attended church together on their first date and bonded over the books found in his library. They had a son, Jack, and share a commitment to the youth of Mariners.
A father again at 56, he was determined to share his faith journey and love of science with Jack so began writing letters to him when he was still a toddler. Today, the letters provide a strong bond between the father and his teen-age son. “I’ve read those to Jack many times. He loves them.”
Now 70, Tom says only in hindsight is he beginning to understand the precision with which the pieces of his faith journey interlock into God’s cohesive plan for his life. He is amazed.
“I’ve learned that people have greater capability than there is opportunity, and my role now to open the doors of opportunity for others”, Tom said. “God was doing amazing things in my life. God was preparing me for today in ways that astound me.”
By Dan Page, Volunteer Storyteller
