Tom McFalls Remembered

By J. Glenn Eugster
November 8, 2007

I first met Tom McFalls in 1993 while we were working with about 75 others on the Delmarva Peninsula's Atlantic Flyway Byway trying to protect migratory bird habitat and local cultural values while stimulating the economy through nature and culture based tourism.

We didn't start to get to know each other until a February 24, 1994 conversation we had about plans that the community of Havre de Grace, Maryland had. Tom invited me to visit and meet some of his friends and colleagues. Tom was looking for money and assistance but he was also playing a match-maker, sharing innovative and creative ideas, and enjoying life and hard work.

He diligently pursued the grant money I was helping to secure and distribute without a great deal of success. However, as Tom would often say, he stayed in the hunt.

As I began to work with Tom I realized that he was a very unique and talented man both professionally and personally. For example, in September 1994 he asked me if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Chesapeake Bay Program office, where I worked at the time, had any plans for the April 1995 Earth Day celebration. He invited us to join the Havre de Grace and we said yes. We hadn't made any plans that far in advance and my boss was most interested in having EPA be more connected with and supportive of local governments.

In March of 1995 White House staff contacted EPA and asked us if we had any plans for Earth Day that were close to Washington, DC. The President and Vice President wanted to do some type of public event. We submitted the Havre de Grace event---the McFall's Plan, to the White House staff, and on April 21, 1995 the President, Vice President, and Governor, along with two U.S. Senators, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, state and local elected officials and about 2,000 others attended the Earth Day celebration.

I smiled for months about the good fortune that Tom had brought our office and the community. It was then I became a disciple of Tom McFalls. Over the years he would call and engage me in his work with the Greater Brandywine Village area; the Pencader Heritage area; a green building for Iron Hill Park; the Lower Delaware River heritage corridor in Delaware and New Jersey; a sports heritage trail in Delaware and Pennsylvania; the Overfalls Lightship in Lewes; and the senior centers in Wilmington and Newark. At the time he left us we were working on ideas for a possible national park in Delaware.

Tom also engaged me in his efforts to assist the Havre de Grace-Lower Susquehanna River Heritage Area in Maryland and the St. Agnes Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We would talk and I almost would almost always agree to join a team of people that he was working with, or recruit a pro-bono team of experts from Washington, the Eastern Shore, Annapolis, Philadelphia, and even Pencader in South Wales.

He introduced me to innovative ideas, wonderful places and talented people such as Cecil and Kathryn Hill, Alan Fair, Brandy Davis, David Menser, Jim Neal, Sue Gettman, Betty Talley, his wife Catherine, and many, many others.

Tom had a quiet enabling type of leadership style that made him easy to work with. He was confident but quite modest. He was a team builder. He loved his wife and his family and his work. He always wanted to help people and worthy causes. Once he embraced a cause, for himself or one of the organizations that he worked with, he was relentless in his pursuit of the goal that he and his partners had. And as a result of his skill, style and persistence, success seemed to follow Tom and his partners around like a friendly dog.


He wasn't just about work however. Over the years we shared baseball and our sports histories, stories about our families, the challenges of life, his work with different social and spiritual causes, and how individuals can make a difference in people's lives. He was always open to the possibilities that life, relationships, friendships and partnerships offer. He had a generosity of spirit. He was a wonderful person and as smart a man as I have met.

I've worked for the federal government for more than 30 years and I average nearly 1,000 inquiries a year from the leaders that we assist and serve. I can count on both hands the people that I've helped that are long-time personal friends. I�m fortunate, and very proud, to be able to say that Tom McFalls was my friend. He remains with me now in the people, places and projects we shared. I miss him dearly and will never forget the time I shared with him.

Tom would often close a conversation or leave a telephone message by saying, "Take care my friend". As I join you today in this celebration of his life, I find myself looking to the heavens and softly saying, Tom, take care my friend.