In an obituary following Tom’s death from a heart attack while jogging April 11, 2014, near his home in midtown Manhattan, the Vermont Standard said that our investment-banker classmate “loved to invest in young growth companies and took the greatest pleasure from watching people with a good idea put it to the test and succeed.” Over the years, the newspaper added, “he remained at heart an optimist who viewed the market as an impartial arbiter of what works. Notwithstanding a conservative crew cut and taciturn demeanor, he believed that everyone deserves a fair shake and some need a helping hand.”

Why a Vermont obituary for this lifetime New Yorker? Since the 1950s, Tom, his wife, Marilyn, and their two children had spent vacations and summers in East Barnard, where they had bought an old farm and had found friendship and support in that village community.

Tom was predeceased by his son, Thomas Byrne III. Survivors include Marilyn; their daughter, Laura; and their grandsons, Cameron and Adrian. The class joins them and the citizens of Vermont and of Manhattan’s East Side in thankfulness for Tom’s well-lived years. 

Undergraduate Class of 1946