We miss you, Tom.

I know I should have written this before now. But deadlines are haunting me, and today I have to somehow put into words the thoughts and feelings that many of us at AFS have shared with each other during the past three weeks. That's when we got word that Tom Bex, our senior editor at modern casting, had suddenly, unexpectedly passed away.

Tom was 69 years old when he died on November 2. And as always, he was looking well past his next birthday, planning his retirement and the things he was going to do with the rest of his life. Just this past August, Tom told me he'd give me "another year and a half or two" before he retired. Then, he and his wife Mary were going to move somewhere near the Chesapeake Bay and go sailing. He loved sailing. To this day, it's a mystery why he turned down a job with a sailing magazine in 1989 and joined us. He just said he wanted to write about "a real industry."

I guess Tom's summer jobs at Crucible Steel during his years at Syracuse University as well as handling the Fansteel and Lindberg Heat Treating accounts as a public relations account manager stuck with him. His years as public relations director for the Brown Lipe Chapin Div. of General Motors, where he learned about metalcasting, also played a part in his choosing to join us.

His enthusiasm about and affection for the foundry industry was more than a little obvious. He was curious about everything about metalcasting: "Now, tell me again exactly how a cupola works." ... "Why would an engineer choose ductile iron over gray iron?" ... "Why don't more foundries reclaim their sand?" ... "What does inoculating iron do for its properties?"

These may seem like pretty elementary questions to you seasoned foundry guys, but each of the answers served as a springboard for Tom. Before you knew it, his desk was piled with reference materials on the subject or he was heading down to the AFS Technical Department or to CMI to fill in the details of his next writing assignment. As he got to know more and more industry people, he didn't hesitate for a second to call them with his questions.

His excitement for his work was only matched by his enthusiasm for the people he worked with. Whether it was teaching others to play pitch at lunch time, getting the women in accounting riled up, taking a young editor under his wing, getting things so screwed up with his computer that not even our sharpest Mac people could help, or offering sage advice when you asked for it, Tom was always there. When it seemed like no one else was on your side, you only needed to think of Tom and things seemed better.

I honestly have never known anyone in the workplace who garnered the amount of affection that Tom did during his short time here at AFS. He always had a thousand ideas and he shared every one of them with you. And the best part was he never took it personally if you didn't go along with them. Those of us who worked closely with him found his spirit contagious and his presence energizing. Anyone who knew Tom was affected by his warm personality, his quick wit and his enormous love of life. "Excelsior! Onward and upward," he would say.

In addition to serving in the military during the "war where they shot real bullets," the Rev. Mr. Tom Bex also was an ordained deacon in the Roman Catholic Church for the past 17 years. But what gave Tom's life real meaning was his family. He'd tell anyone who would listen about Janet's upcoming wedding, Sarah's career as an attorney and Peter's creativeness as an art director. His youngest son Andy was half of the home remodeling crew of Hap & Hazard (Tom was the other half). Their home projects were almost legendary here at AFS. And, of course, there were Ross and Brian, his two grandsons. You couldn't miss them. Their pictures were all over his office.

But if any one thing gave Tom his greatest joy, it was Mary, his friend for more than 43 years. One morning as Tom and I were in my office talking about some work things, he stopped our conversation and began speaking about his wife. He said, "I was sitting at home last night watching Mary. And I said to myself, 'That's a beautiful woman.'" What more do you need to know about a man other than the fact that he is in love with his wife?

Now, space is running short and I have barely scratched the surface of what Tom meant to us. I think each of us has a favorite story or two (or 12) that we would like to share with those of you who didn't know Tom, but time and space don't allow us to do it here.

So, if we could say it simply, it is: "Tommy, we love you, and we miss you."