Eulogy for Tom Melly

February 8, 2025

President Mark D. Gearan

Judy, Lee, Laura, David, Tom – members of the Melly and Hershey families.

I am joined today by the Board of Trustees of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and their spouses who have altered their Winter Board Meeting in Geneva, New York to be here in Sarasota to honor their colleague, Tom Melly. Board Chair Craig Stine joins former Board Chairs Maureen Zupan, Tom Bozzuto and Honorary Trustees Cyndy Fish and our longest serving trustee Tom Poole, who all worked closely with Tom during his service.

Tom Melly was one of the first HWS Trustees I met in 1999 at a search interview at the Boston Copley Plaza Hotel. I had read up about him and his illustrious career at Goldman Sachs. Seated to my left at a long conference table, it was clear he was a formidable person. He asked smart, tough questions. And 25 years later, I am honored by Judy’s invitation to reflect on someone who was so important to me as a college president, as a mentor and as a most valued friend to Mary and me.

When I learned of Tom’s passing from Bob O’Connor, I was in London with my family for a Christmas holiday. And while we were all aware of the actuarial realities of life and his age, I was shocked and of course saddened. We wanted more time with Tom. We wanted more of his counsel, his wry humor. His kindness. We didn’t want to let him go.

And so in London, I was thinking a lot about Tom and recalled the great work of noted architect Christopher Wren who had the important charge to rebuild London after the great fire in 1666 including his masterpiece of St. Paul’s Cathedral where he is buried.

But it was the epitaph on Wren’s tombstone in St. Paul’s Cathedral that reminded me of Tom. It reads: Christopher Wren: He lived beyond the age of ninety, not to himself but for the public good. If you seek his monument, look around you.

If you seek his monument, look around you.

While Wren’s reference, of course, was to look around London and see his accomplishments. I would say to all of us as friends of Tom Melly – if you seek Tom’s monument – look around Hobart and William Smith.

For on those 195 acres in the Finger Lakes of New York lies a monument to the life’s work of Tom Melly. Every part of our campus bears his imprint, his leadership, his philanthropy and his vision.

As an engaged alumnus, he served the Colleges as President of the Alumni Association, joining the Board of Trustees in 1981, elected Chair of the Board in 1987 and was the only person in our history to hold the title Board Chair Emeritus.

For 43 years, from 1981 to our most recent meeting in October which he attended via Zoom, he served his alma mater. Tom Melly prized the importance of higher education and recruited outstanding graduates, parents and friends of the Colleges to guide and steer it as Trustees through decades of growth, challenge and success.

His care for students and the importance of opening the doors of opportunity to a Hobart and William Smith education reflected his own journey of losing his mother at just 11 years old to the impact of his father’s seven years of unemployment during the Depression. While others might have moved on following such professional success – Tom Melly never did. He never forgot his college and dedicated his life to giving back to the place that he felt contributed to his success. Scholarships he has funded have provided generations of students a world class education they could not have imagined.

His respect for our faculty and their important role in a college was a clear focus for him. He knew and advised me that the quality of our faculty is essential to our future, our reputation and the intellectual engagement on our campus. The Melly Academic Center brought vital classroom space and enhancements to our library, the centerpiece of learning and thought on our campus.

From the arts to athletics, Tom saw the whole picture of a residential liberal arts and sciences institution and ensured our ambition for excellence – whether it was our nationally ranked sailing team or leading the charge of his fellow Trustees to build a performing arts center with its centerpiece front lobby appropriately named by the Board of Trustees for Tom and Judy.

The earliest use of the word ‘alumnus’ dates back to the Oxford English Dictionary from 1602. The essence of the word is derived from the Latin verb “to grow” and “to nourish”.

Well Tom certainly defined alumnus for growing and nourishing Hobart and William Smith.

One of the many ways Tom grew and nourished HWS was his determined focus to enhance resources, build our endowment, modernize our campus and support our students through fundraising and building a modern advancement operation.

His skill as a fundraiser was legendary with graduates pridefully wearing buttons at the close of a capital campaign that read: “I had lunch with Tom Melly” – meaning, I had lunch with Tom Melly, he asked me for a donation, and I gave it!

For me as a novice President – I benefited from what I would term a Master Class in fundraising when we would go to lunch with a graduate or a parent. He would arrange the lunch at the University Club, tee me up for a campus update, and then casually turn to the guest and ask “Can we talk about the campaign?” To which everyone, of course, agreed.

They, too, would soon be wearing a button!

But what I saw – what I learned – was that Tom’s skill was borne from his genuine love of the place. I was struck that during his travels for Goldman through the years, he would visit our graduates and write up call reports so our staff could follow up. More lunches with Tom Melly. More buttons.

But for all his many professional accomplishments and his extraordinary servant leadership for HWS what I so admired about Tom was his personal attributes – his broad range of interests, his modest calm demeanor, his kindness – and his confident capacity as an athletic Marine and hard charging Wall Street man – to tear up and beautifully show unvarnished human emotion in public.

His love of learning, travel and appreciation of art demonstrated his range of interests. Early in my tenure, Tom was at a Board dinner at the President’s House on campus. Mary and I tend to like modern abstract art and while Tom was always unfailingly thoughtful and gracious in his reflections on our pieces, he once suggested he might send a little piece for our dining room. Soon, a large, crated box arrived with a stunning Asher Durand, Hudson River School landscape painting.

Tom would later say to me with his inimitable twinkle in his eye – that he would enjoy looking at that painting during the next Board dinner.

And once again, Tom was right and that lovely piece remains at the President’s House and I smile every time I look at it.

But any institutional reflection of Tom Melly from HWS would be incomplete without our expression of gratitude to Tom’s beloved wife, Judy, his children and their late mother, Alice. For we know well that Tom’s time in Geneva, during those famous lunches, and hosting myriad of events from Greenwich to Sarasota took time away from all of you. But I hope you know, what we know, the pride and the love he had for each of you.

And so today we honor Tom Melly, Chair Emeritus of HWS – dedicated alumnus, true Hobart Stateman.

John Quincy Adams said:

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more or become more – you are a leader.”

And so, with gratitude and friendship, we come to Sarasota today to honor our leader.

Tom’s actions did indeed inspire us to dream more.

His leadership allowed us to learn more,

And his dedication ensured HWS became more.

And every day when we look around our campus we will see – and honor – the monument of his life’s work and the monumental impact he has had on the students, faculty, staff and graduates of his grateful alma mater.

Godspeed, Tom Melly. And thank you.