Tom always said, “We know not the hour nor the day,” but the day finally came for him after a lengthy journey with colon cancer.
If you met Tom and heard about his life, you would inevitably end up saying, “You can’t make this up!”
Tom was born accidentally in Chicago while his mother, Margaret, was traveling across the country to join her husband, Robert, and went into preterm labor, delivering Tom and his twin brother, Bob.
As an Air Force family, they moved around regularly, living in New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Washington, DC, Tokyo California and Alabama. He went to high school at Loras Academy in Dubuque, Iowa, began college in Germany, then entered the Air Force Academy. He soon realized war is not the answer, so resigned, stating he intended to become a priest.
He graduated from Loras College in 1962 and went on to Georgetown Law School, then Catholic University where he earned a master’s in Brazilian history. He taught Latin American History and American Intellectual History at St. John’s University in Rochester, NY.
In 1970, he moved to Minnesota to work on his PhD in American Studies (which he has “all but my dissertation”). In 1972, he ran in the Democratic primary for US Senate against Walter Mondale, riding his bicycle 1,000 miles across Minnesota to campaign.
Tom was an early pioneer in alternative energy policy, becoming among the first to sell small-scale wind production energy to a major utility. In 1978, he received a grant for studying and advocating for the restoration of abandoned hydroelectric dams—an issue he championed for decades.
Tom was a founder and executive director of the non-profit organization, Natural Resources Corporation, which administered energy conservation and weatherization projects in Hennepin County. Tom was later appointed by St. Paul’s Mayor Latimer to form a non-profit, private-public partnership with the local utility that provided loans for home-owner energy conservation projects.
Tom’s embryonic work in renewable energy production was vital in shaping public policy that now compels Minnesota utilities to produce and purchase renewable energy.
Even though it could be frustrating work at times, Tom never gave up on trying to improve the world. He remained committed to making the planet better by planting numerous trees, putting up solar panels for his 80th birthday, and waiting seven months for an electric vehicle when he was 84.
He was drawn to Lake Superior and purchased land on Madeline Island in 1989. He spent weekends in a tent, clearing the land. He eventually helped design and build a house, guest house, sauna and an amazing staircase which carries you 80 feet down to the beach. It is a beautiful, meditative place.
Tom was married three times: first to Marie Kopecka in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1976 (which is a long story); then to Bridget Ryan from 1980-1983; and lastly to Mary Pat Renaud, whom he married in 2007 after a brief, 15-year engagement. He never intended to have children, but he acquired a family through Mary Pat and her daughters, Jennifer (Patrick) Boyle, and Katie (Nason) Holets, and became “Grandpa Tom” to five grandchildren: Garrett, Riley and Kieran Holets, and Mary and Clare Boyle.
In 2012, he and Mary Pat moved to Duluth in retirement which he thought was the most perfect spot in the world! When he was not reading, painting or traveling the world, you could find him puttering in the garden, making many paths with innumerable loads of wood chips, and trying to keep the deer out of what he just planted.
Tom was an optimist, an eternal scholar, and was always interested in what the other person had to say. His advice for a good life: buy low, sell high; floss your teeth; and don’t split your infinitives. He also said the best thing you can do on this earth is to have influence—to leave a better person behind you after you’re gone. Anyone who knew Tom knows they are that better person.
Requiescat in pace. Dona nobis pacem.
Tom is preceded in death by his parents, Margaret and Raymond, and his brothers, Robert and Michael Griffin.
A celebration of Tom’s life will be held in the Spring when the world once again awakens to new life.
