Tom first became aware of diversity issues in grade school when the nuns who were teaching him said to treat everyone with respect. Tom had a hard time reconciling this with the racist and anti-Semitic remarks he heard from churchgoing people in his Philadelphia neighborhood.
 
Tom followed the civil rights movement closely and, after hearing SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) recruiters speak at his college  Tom briefly considered going to Mississippi in 1964 as part of Freedom Summer. Three of the students (two from New York City and one from Mississippi) who did got to register African-American voters were murdered by the Klan.
 
Tom started teaching in West Philadelphia in 1967. He took some of his students to hear Dr. King speak at Tom's alma mater (Saint Joseph's College, now University) in February 1968, two months before Dr. King was killed. 
 
Tom started working as co-chair of the Council for Women in Independent schools after his daughter was born in 1982. He was a founding board member of the Philadelphia area Multi Cultural Resource Center (which still exists today under the acronym ADVIS/MCRC. 
 
MCRC worked very closely with the former NAIS Diversity Director, Randy Carter, who helped establish POCC/SDLC. 
 
Tom was very involved in the Diversity Committee at the Episcopal Academy during his three decades there.
 
After 47 years in the classroom, Tom became the Director of Diversity and Inclusion at the Delaware Valley Friends School. Tom heads the Diversity Committee at DVFS along with the GSA. He consults with the head of DVFS's BSU, Khalil Munir, and along with DVFS alum and current Temple student, Dori Markovitz, and DVFS faculty member, Kathy Justi, started the school's Feminist Group. The Feminist Group's award winning film from the Bridge Film Festival "Grassroots Feminists" can be seen on You Tube.
 
Tom also writes a weekly column for the Times Herald newspaper, which frequently deals with diversity issues. He vows to continue diversity work in schools, until they carry him out the door. And then he'll just continue diversity work outside of schools!