Thomas J. Plutz: 1947-1996 (Tax Executives Institute's Director of Administration) (includes 7 testimonials)

Thomas J. Plutz, TEI's Director of Administration, died on August 21, after a long illness. Reprinted below are tributes submitted by TEI members, staff, and other individuals who knew Mr. Plutz through his work with Tax Executives Institute.

William E. Williams, Former IRS Deputy Commissioner and Former Editor, The Tax Executive

I met Tom Plutz in 1974 when arriving in Washington as Deputy Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service and he had just started working for TEI. At that time, the TEI office was quite small and Tom and Bill Lynch were the principal officials. I also had considerable contact with Tom during my two years as Editor of The Tax Executive magazine, after retiring from the IRS.

Theresa and I attended TEI's convention in Honolulu in the early 80s and have lots of favorable remembrances from our contacts with Kathy and Tom.

I remember Tom as a hard working, able, and dedicated official of TEI. He was very kind, gentle, friendly, and committed to his family; he spoke often of Kathy and their children. From my knowledge, Tom could be described as a solid person with good common sense and it is regretful that he lived such a short time. TEI and his many friends will miss Tom in the years ahead.

James M. Bodfish, 1979-1980 TEI International President

Tom Plutz had an outstanding talent for quietly doing a vast array of assignments well. He could always be counted on. His ready smile and willingness to help were key things I remember about this remarkable person. His untimely passing is a great loss to all of us in TEI.

Gary W. Brown, Colonial Williamsburg Hotels

I first met Tom in my capacity as Sales Manager of the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill where I had the pleasure of working with Tom and the late Bill Lynch. Fortunately, I was able to enjoy keeping in touch with Tom, as well as Deborah Gaffney, through my years with Hyatt and even during my tenure with Colonial Williamsburg.

Tom was a fine individual. As a supplier to the Association Industry, I know he made myself and others most welcome when making sales calls on TEI's headquarters. He was truly a gentleman, always had a kind word, and I will sadly miss seeing him during future visits.

Paul A. Barrese, 1983-1984 TEI International President

Tom and Kathy Plutz were Marie's and my friends. When I was President of TEI in 1983, Tom was always there with the answers to many of the dilemmas we had during that year. That was the year that we had to relocate the Annual Conference from the Diplomat Hotel because of a fire and transferred to the unforgettable Deauville. Many members of TEI still remember all the problems we had relocation and our many experiences at the Deauville. Through it all, Tom managed to solve all the problems. He will not only missed at TEI, but by his many friends.

Katherine M. Stopa, Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University 

A number of years ago, Tom Plutz and I worked together to conduct several week-long Tax Executives Institute courses. During the programs, Tom always represented the best interests of the participants. We treasured the opportunity of having Tom return to the campus because his requests served to improve the educational environment for TEI's membership. On a personal note, I will remember Tom as a kind, gentle man who deeply loved his wife and family.

L. Wayne Farrell, 1984-1985 TEI International President

Tom was truly one of the most decent people I have ever known. While some people seem to delight in their insensitivity toward other people, in the 22 years I knew Tom I never heard him make a disparaging remark about another fellow human being.

I remember Tom fondly not only for the great job he did concerning serious TEI business, but more for the fun times, such as out visit to Carmel, the raft trip down the Snake River, and our shared passion for big steaks and long-neck Buds. While his family and many friends will properly mourn our loss of Tom, God must be very happy with the newest member of his staff.

Michael J. Murphy, TEI Executive Director

People say that I was Tom Plutz's boss, but that was wrong. Tom had more than 5,000 bosses -- all the members of TEI. For 22 years, he served them all the best he could, and the organization and those of us who worked with him are the better for it.

Tom Plutz was our conscience, a man of impeccable integrity. When Tom spoke, you had to listen. If you asked him for his opinion, you got it. He did not hem and hew, or scan the room in order to size up how others might be voting and adjust his views accordingly. NO, he was a straight shooter and dispassionately gave you his honest opinion, regardless of how the vote was going. And should his view not prevail, he did not sulk or complain; he quietly went about the work of implementing the decision the best way he could. He was always there when he was needed; he was never very pushy, but he was always there.

Tom was serious, but did not take himself too seriously. He got along with everyone -- those he supervised, his fellow managers, and most importantly the members for whom we all work. As TEI's longest-tenured employee, Tom was a walking encyclopedia of TEI practice and lore. He took a lot of kidding from the staff about the condition of his office, and about wanting to do it the way we always did, but in truth he was open to new ideas. Above all, he was loyal and dependable.

When I think of Tom Plutz, I think of man devoted to his family. I remember a karaoke bar in Disney World in 1993 when "the Von Plutz Family Singers" -- Mom, Dad, and the two kids -- regaled the audience. Tom took great pride in Matt and Christina, and was equally proud of Kathy. From what he told me, I know that their support and love during his illness only strengthened and reinforced that pride. I know, too, that Tom was proud of how the members of his other family -- TEI staff -- pitched in during his illness. I share that pride.

Tom Plutz was Mr. Dependable. Mr. Independent. Mr. Nice Guy. Mr. Family Man. And as I strive to cope with his being taken from us, I take comfort in the following poem, entitled "Afterglow," which was given to me in memory of another loved one:

I'd like the memory of me

To be a happy one. I'd like to leave an afterglow

Of smiles when life is done. I'd like to leave an echo whispering

Softly down the ways, Of happy times and laughing times

And bright and sunny days. I'd like to tears of those who grieve,

To dry before the sun Of happy memories that I leave

When life is done.

Timothy J. McCormally, TEI General Counsel

I

A decade ago Tom Plutz and I watched Bill Lynch, TEI's long-time Managing Director, die slowly and painfully of cancer. Tom had worked with Bill a lot longer than I had, for Bill retired a year after I joined the Institute's staff in July 1982, whereas Tom had been one of his assistants for more than 10 years. Both of us, however, viewed Bill as virtually indestructible. Neither one of us, of course, really wanted to make the trip over to George Washington University Hospital in 1986 to see Bill, in part because we did not like hospitals and in part because we did not want to bear witness to what illness had done to a man as vigorous and exuberant as Bill. But we went out of respect for who Bill was and what he had done -- for TEI and for us personally. We went as healthy young men, in our mid to late thirties, never thinking that cancer would attack us as ferociously and crushingly as it cut down Bill.

Ten years later, I made similar visits to see Tom Plutz. Once again, they were not trips I wanted to make; the last thing I wanted in my mid-forties was to be reminded of Tom's and, indirectly, my own mortality. But I visited with Tom (in person, on the phone, and via e-mail) out of respect for who he was and what he had done -- again, for TEI and for me personally. I went and called and wrote (alas, too infrequently) because Tom was a caring but unassuming colleague whose calm demeanor, even disposition, and fierce pride concealed his need for support. I went because he was my friend.

II

Diagnosed with lung cancer last Thanksgiving, Tom Plutz never returned to TEI's offices on Pennsylvania Avenue. Just before Tom died, I learned that his doctors had not really expected him to make it past St. Patrick's Day. But he refused to accept his fate, and he won the battle against cancer for nearly eight months. To be sure, the disease (and the attendant radiation and chemotherapy treatments) robbed Tom of his strength. But neither his determination nor his hope flagged. He talked continually of returning to work and he fought to stay involved and to be of help, even as he was growing weaker. On the home front, he pushed himself to attend his daughter's basketball games, to fret about his son's job and his college career, and generally to worry about their future, and that of his wife, Kathy.

Tom's employment with TEI began in August 1974, and I met him eight years later when I reported to work at the Institute's offices in Rosslyn, Virginia. Over the years, I came to value Tom's friendship, his judgment, and his contributions to TEI's success. To be sure, he was not perfect. His office was a mess, and his center desk drawer could rightfully be the subject of an archeological dig. More often than not, though, he could (eventually) find the single sheet of paper he was looking for in the haystack resting on his desk. (We argued, good naturedly, for two years over which one of us last had custody of a missing file, and to my lasting embarrassment it was eventually found exactly where I put it.) Without question, Tom on occasion proceeded ploddingly, and to the exasperation of his coworkers, he elevated procrastination to an art form. Sometimes, however, art is precisely what is called for, and as Aesop's tortoise demonstrated, a slow-but-steady approach not only gets you to the finish line but often helps you arrive before all the others.

Perhaps Tom's strongest attributes at TEI were his institutional memory, his patience, and his eagle eye. Although there was nothing in his job description about being a proofreader extraordinaire, the entire staff relied on his unfailing ability to ferret the last typographical error out of a document. Whether he was looking at the financial statements, the membership roster, a conference program, or an issue of The Tax Executive, Tom's attention to detail would not permit a single error to escape his watch. We shall miss not only his skill but his kindness in not continually saying "gotcha." (Tom would have gone apoplectic at a recent meeting of TEI's Board of Directors, where there was no item 6 between items 5 and 7 on the agenda and there were a couple of misspellings -- including the name of the Institute's President. He would never have missed -- nor countenanced -- such errors.)

Tom's personal integrity was beyond reproach. In my experience, he never bore a grudge and never violated a confidence. As TEI's Director of Administration, he heard a lot of complaints, and he took a lot of grief from members and staff alike. Through it all, he kept his temper and his dry sense of humor, and he kept his eye on the big picture. Although we teased Tom about being resistant to change, he was a good listener and helped bring many innovations to TEI. If Tom had 'a weakness in managing people, it was that he was too nice, too reluctant to let them know who was boss. But if that is a fault, it is not too bad a one to have on the ledger when you meet St. Peter.

Not surprisingly, over the years Tom and I spent a lot of time talking to each other. I bored him with my poetry, politics, and various tax technicalities, and he insisted that you could only get good Chicago-style pizza in Chicago, that the Corvette he bought for his wife was a good investment, and that the tour of Alcatraz was the greatest thing in the world. We discussed everything from our children's driving skills to our wives' careers, from our home mortgages to our favorite beers, and from the salaries of today's professional athletes to the best ways to lose weight. (I'd favor Slim Fast while Tom followed the T-Factor diet.)

Since TEI has a relative small staff (only 12), we operate very much like a family, at least in a couple of ways. First, we are very adept at teasing one another. One such occasion for teasing was the time when Tom died his graying hair jet black while on vacation. When he returned to work, he tried to pretend that nothing had changed -- that he had simply come back, miraculously younger -- and we let him get away with that . . . for about five seconds. And then we let him have it, relentlessly razzing him, calling him Ronald Reagan or Bob Dole or some similarly touched-up celebrity. And good sport that he was, Tom laughed along with us. I much later learned that on the day Tom died his hair, he rushed out of the bathroom with black streaks running down his face. "What do I do, what do I do?" he frantically cried. That would have been a sight to see -- and fodder for more teasing. I understand that after the dye job, his family took to calling him "Johnny," after Johnny Carson's slicked-back con man. At TEI, we just called him friend.

Another way in which TEI is like a family is that while we may give one another grief, woe to the person who takes one of us on. He or she will soon be doing battle with the whole clan. In this regard, Tom was probably the most loyal among us.

Tom's low-key personality masked his passions, at work and at home. He was proud of the job he did for TEI, and he was intensely proud of his family. He lived for his wife and children, and was devout without being pious or judgmental. And, without question, he was a fervent sports fan. Although he rooted for the Orioles, Redskins, Bullets, and Capitals, his true loyalties lay with the teams from his hometown of Chicago. My family attends several baseball games each season, and several years ago when we couldn't attend an O's-White Sox game, Tom took our tickets and watched his White Sox pitch a no-hitter against my team. I heard about that game for weeks.

III

Tom Plutz died at the Hospice of Northern Virginia on his 49th birthday. It is said that people suffering from terminal illnesses often rally in order to reach certain milestones, such as holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays. Tom lived to see the beginning of his 50th year, but after two decades with TEI, I think that many of his milestones were also the Institute's, and in this regard, he made it past one and was holding out hope for reaching another. The last extended conversation I had with him was shortly before TEI's Annual Meeting of Members, which was held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the second week of August. Tom and I reminisced about TEI's first trip to Jackson Hole in 1983 and about how we experienced together a bumpy airplane ride over the Tetons, the frigid white water of the Snake River, the wonders of Old Faithful, and (years before we worried about our cholesterol) the 22-ounce steaks at a local restaurant.

We also talked about a TEI milestone three months in the future -- the Institute's 51st Annual Conference, which will be held this October in Chicago for the first time since 1963. Throughout his illness, Tom insisted to me and other members of the staff that he would be back in action for his hometown conference. We all hoped against hope that would happen. But when we talked in late July, Tom knew that such a journey was impossible. Fate would rob him of the opportunity to attend one more conference.

Tom continued to be a fighter, however. And he kept his sense of humor, too, even though he was racked with pain. When he checked into the hospice on August 19, the nurse showed Tom how to operate the call button. "Let me know," she said, "if you need anything at all." She was barely out of the room when Tom frantically called her back. "What do you need?" she asked. Lifting the bed sheet, Tom replied, "I need to get out of here." Two days later, with his family at his side, Tom left his pain behind and reached his final milestone.

IV

Ten years ago, I wrote that Bill Lynch deserved to be remembered for his vitality and for the good things he had done, not for what cancer did to his body. I feel the same way about Tom Plutz. I shall remember Tom's vitality, mixed with a wide assortment of aches and pains, and the quiet, unassuming way in which he went about his job. I shall also remember that he was a good husband and father, a caring coworker, and an exemplary friend. When you work with someone every day for 14 years, you often fail to appreciate him and may even diminish his importance. And then, when he is gone (or going), you regret having taken him for granted. That is also how I feel about Tom. Time will surely dull the pain we feel at his passing and fill the void that today is undeniable. But it will not erase how he enriched our lives or the debt we owe to him.

A lingering illness, with all its burdens, usually has the advantage of providing time to express thanks, to reconcile, to say goodbye. Tom's steadfast refusal to accept his fate, however understandable, made it difficult for many people (myself included) to come to closure and tell Tom what his friendship meant to them. My own last effort, presented in the box at the left and delivered to Tom the day before he died, was no doubt inadequate, but it speaks of a time before I visited hospitals and said farewell to those I assumed would always be around.

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Long ago in Rosslyn, before you by Fate were jerked We'd go together to the dog man and order them with the works.