Join AFIO Member Login
You are logged in as Logout DONATE
Thomas Edward McCormick III exemplified the greatest qualities anyone can have in this life: he was a truly good man. He was devoted to his family and deeply beloved by his wife, daughters, sons-in-law, and five grandchildren. He was a dedicated public servant and spent his entire career answering President Kennedy's question about what he could do for his country. In his nearly 86 years of life, Tom McCormick solved complex crypto-mathematical problems no one else could, built entire worlds filled with silly stories for his children and grandchildren, and loved his devoted wife every day of their 55-year marriage.
Born in Baltimore on November 8, 1940, Tom was the first of three sons to Rose Hart and Thomas Edward McCormick, Jr. His younger brothers, Dennis and Donny, predeceased him in 1996 and 1993, respectively. He grew up struggling academically in a world that did not yet understand dyslexia, but these struggles only made this curious and brilliant little boy all the more determined to succeed. He went on to graduate from Towson Catholic in 1958, Loyola College of Maryland in 1962, and the University of Notre Dame with a master's degree in mathematics in 1964. He later added an additional masters from Johns Hopkins in Computer Science, a field he helped build from the early days of computing.
Math was more to Tom than a profession; it was inexorably intertwined with who he was as a person. While his dyslexia ensured that he would rely on his wife to balance the checkbook, complex theoretical mathematics illuminated his mind, providing entire universes to ponder at all times of day or night. He found his professional home as a civil servant at a little-known federal agency where he could bring together his brilliance in theoretical mathematics with the practical skills of engineering and computer science. While the nature of his agency meant his family learned few details about exactly what he did, the numerous awards he racked up and the ceremony at his retirement made it clear that for the people who did know, his contributions had been vast and meaningful. While the details of his work remain unknown, what his family has learned is that this little boy who was told he would never amount to much because he struggled to read or work out basic arithmetic went on to do cryptomathematics that saved lives and advanced America's interests on an international scale. And this too is who Tom was, never showy or looking for notoriety, just perfectly content to quietly do the meaningful work that powered our nation like so many civil servants before and after him.
While his work was important to him, Tom made sure his family always knew that they were truly the light of his life. In 1971 he met and quickly married Ursula Marie Blank, falling so helplessly in love over a ski weekend with the Catholic Alumni Club that they were engaged just five weeks later. Their early life together was bliss, as anyone can tell from their shining faces in old photographs and the warmth in their voices as they recount their stories to their grandchildren. They welcomed their first daughter, Colleen, in 1975, and spent seven years with her as the center of their happy world, including three wonderful years living in Cheltenham, England and traveling throughout Europe. After returning to the States, they welcomed their second daughter, Caitlin, in 1982. Tom and Ursula gave their daughters the happiest of childhoods in Columbia, Maryland filled with the simple joys of being together. He would read to his daughters for endless hours, create personalities and protracted stories for their stuffed animals, and play countless rounds of boardgames on lazy Sundays. He also taught his girls all the important life lessons - how to study hard, to get back on your bike when you fell off, and the importance of standing up for yourself and others. There were other important lessons too like how to keep score at his beloved Orioles games, fold the perfect paper airplane, and skip rocks at the local pond. All these life lessons paid off, as he watched Colleen become a doctor and Caitlin become a lawyer (facts he would happily tell anyone he met and then smile broadly as they proclaimed upon what a great job he must have done raising such strong, smart daughters). Colleen is now a nationally acclaimed gynecological oncologist at John Hopkins, and Caitlin followed her father's footsteps into federal service.Tom could not have been prouder.
Perhaps the greatest joy that his daughters brought Tom though is who they brought into his life. In 2010, Caitlin married Matthew Brault and Colleen married Donald Hudson. In the years that followed, Tom delighted in welcoming five grandchildren: Declan, Pierce, Camden, Aela, and Eloise. With these additions, Tom became a full-time Papa, as his devoted gaggle of grandchildren all called him, and he delighted in playing with them, building castles out of blocks and train sets that wrapped around the entire house. Tom always knew how to connect with each child individually, spending hours talking math with Declan, playing boardgames and puzzles with Pierce, cheering on the Orioles with Camden, and building make believe worlds with magna-tiles, blocks, and trains for his inseparable granddaughters Aela and Eloise.
Tom's beautiful life came to an end, as all things must, on October 21, 2026, after a protracted battle with kidney cancer. He fought valiantly, determined to carve out more time with the family he loved so much. In the end it was time with the people he loved who mattered most to him, and hospice gave him the gift of an anniversary at home, playing boardgames like Ticket to Ride with his grandchildren, and hours of being read to. He left this world peacefully as a much-beloved hero to those who knew him best.
There will be a celebration of Tom's life on November 8, 2026 which would have been his 86th birthday. Tom was a former member of the Phoenix Society.