Hugh McKelvey Tomb ’41

Hugh died April 27, 2007, in Newton, Mass., where he had lived his entire life.

A graduate of Newton High School, he majored in SPIA at Princeton and graduated with high honors. He was a member of Whig-Clio and Campus Club.

For the early years after college, Hugh worked in the plastics division of Monsanto Chemical Co. He next established his own company, Laminated Sheet Products Co., and focused on the architectural applications being developed by such visionaries as Buckminster Fuller, who commissioned Hugh’s company to build the geodesic dome for the American pavilion at the 1969 international exhibition in Montreal.

Having retired from the field of industrial plastics, Hugh established a new enterprise to respond to the growing demand for solar heating applications in the private sector, both for domestic hot water and space heating. Through the Elbart Manufacturing Co., Hugh encouraged many students in the alternative-energy fields of wind and solar power, providing space and tools for their experiments in the former textile mill that housed his own projects during the 1980s.

Hugh is survived by his wife, Lavina Chase Tomb; two sons, William and Douglas; and two grandchildren, Meghan and Jonathan. He was predeceased by his eldest son, John.