That Somebody

Although we share the same Alma mater, I did not know Thomas Glasser either while he was at Wardlaw or, for his senior year, at the newly-merged Wardlaw-Hartridge. He was a member of the class of '78, which was the first year of the merger.  Kara, Jill, and I did not matriculate on over to W-H until the 1978-79 school year.  I knew who he was merely from having read about him in W-H's school paper, The Beacon, in which tales of his distance-running prowess during cross-country season in the fall and during track season in the spring were well-reported.  

Tom Glasser was not simply an excellent high school runner as he proved when he won a gold medal at the 1981 Maccabiah Games in Israel and as he proved repeatedly during his collegiate running career at Haverford College.  His career was extraordinary enough at Haverford College that its athletic hall-of-fame is named for him:  The Thomas Glasser '82 Hall of Achievement.   

After graduating from Haverford, Tom attained his MBA from NYU and became a titan of Wall Street.  He was a partner at Sandler,O'Neill & Partners, which had its offices on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower.  There were eighty-three people in the offices that morning, including Tom Glasser.  Sixty-six of them were killed, including Tom Glasser.  

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Tom Glasser was just forty years old.  He lived with his wife, Meg, and the couple's two sons, Dylan and Luke, in Summit, New Jersey, not too terribly far from his hometown of Westfield.  

Because our time at W-H did not overlap, my knowledge of Tom Glasser for a very long time was limited solely to his athletic prowess.  It was not until after he died that I realized just how much I had to learn about him; including that he was even a better man than he was an athlete.  In 2001, Tom came to Summit PBA Local #55 with an idea for helping the children of Summit police officers (and by extension their moms and dads).  His idea?  Creation of a scholarship fund to assist those children who wanted to go to college to earn a degree in Criminal Justice or a related field of study.  The first scheduled meeting of the Fund was mid-September, 2001.  Tom Glasser was killed one week earlier.  In honor of it having been Tom's brainchild and in order to honor his memory, the scholarship was named for him and the Thomas I. Glasser Memorial Scholarship Fund, Inc. was born.  Nineteen years later, it is still going strong and still providing a helping hand. 

In 2019, Overlook Medical Center in Summit (a great hospital at which 60% of Pop Pop's grandchildren were born!) opened the Thomas Glasser Caregivers Center, a space created for those who are caring for a hospitalized loved one, be it a family member or a friend.  The lead gift for the Caregivers Center, which was $700,000, came from the Thomas I. Glasser Memorial Foundation.

As I was doing on-line research for this piece, I came across this beautiful essay written by Tom Glasser's niece, Becca Glasser-Baker.  Simply extraordinary stuff.  

About a man who was just that - simply extraordinary. 

-AK