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Obituary for Thomas Brown Greenman
Thomas Brown Greenman 1919-2017
Thomas Brown Greenman left this world on this morning (2/12/17) after a long, thoughtful and peaceful life. He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1919, to Almon and Charlotte Greenman. He was the third of four boys, Almon, John and Robert. He graduated from the University of Minnesota’s School of Engineering in the early 1940’s. He served his country during WWII as a mechanic in the Air Force repairing military aircraft. After the war, Tom attended and graduated from the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, MA. In 1949 Tom was selected to join General Electric’s Management Training Program.
Tom met his future wife, Janet Claire Westbrook when he was based in General Electric’s Schenectady facility. Following their wedding in 1954, Tom and Janet moved to Erie, PA where Tom worked at GE’s Erie facility. From 1963 to 1965, Tom took a short hiatus from General Electric to work at Harbridge House, a management consulting firm in Boston.
Tom re-joined General Electric in 1965 taking a position at the Lynn, MA plant. While working at the Lynn plant, Tom participated in GE’s fuel cell project later used in the NASA space program. In 1971, Tom took a transfer back to the GE operation in Erie, PA to work on the company’s mass transit production system. While living in Erie, Tom taught business management courses at Penn State’s Behrend Campus.
In 1974, Tom left General Electric to join Sanders’ Associates (now Lockheed Martin) in Nashua, NH, where he worked in management administration. Janet followed and they bought, re-stored and moved into an early 1750s New England farmhouse in Wilton, NH. While at Sanders he worked on the Governor of New Hampshire’s commission to improve efficiency in the state’s Transportation Department.
Tom retired in 1990 and traveled with with his wife, Janet. Two of their trips included traveling in China and Russia. Additionally Tom also found time to assist his mentor, Val Feagenbaum on researching and writing several books on total quality management. Tom also loved to sing. He sang in church choirs as a boy and adult. When he and Janet moved to New Hampshire, Tom joined the Nashua Choral Society. Participating in the Choral Society allowed Tom and Janet to make several trips together to England, Europe and Scandinavia.
In 2002, Tom and Janet moved into Rivermead, a continuing care community in Peterborough, NH. The Greenman family would like to thank the staff at Rivermead for the excellent attention and care the staff provided to Tom in the last years of his life.
Tom is survived by his wife, Janet Westbrook Greenman and two children, Jeremy H. Greenman (b.1956) currently of Glen Gardner, NJ and Christopher H. Greenman (b.1957) currently of Montgomery, Alabama. He is also survived by daughters-in-law; Irene (Speckhart) Greenman and two grandchildren, Colin Thomas and Cassidy Claire and Susan (Deas) Greenman and three grandchildren, Heather Coleman, Joss Reeves and Elizabeth Reeves Boger and four great-grandchildren. Tom is also survived by his brother John Greenman and his wife, Virginia and seventeen nieces and nephews. Tom’s brothers ,Almon Greenman and Robert Greenman pre-deceased him.
Tom Greenman was a loving family man, husband and father. This was evident to everyone who knew him well. Tom was a member of the World Future Society, actively working to make the world a better place. Tom’s family requests that anyone who wishes to can make donations in Tom Greenman’s memory to the Nashua Soup Kitchen & Shelter, PO Box 3116, Nashua, NH 03061-3116.
