ABOUT THOMAS E. HEALY CPA
Thomas E. Healy received his B.A. in chemistry from Williams College and his Ph.D. in analytical-environmental chemistry from the University of Colorado. Amazingly, the article in the Journal of Analytical Chemistry that reported my research is now available on the web. Here is the first page.
After several years of teaching and industry work, he returned to school to obtain a Masters in Accountancy from the University of Denver in 1978.
He received the highest grade in Colorado on the November 1977 Uniform CPA Examination. After working for Arthur Young & Company (now part of Ernst and Young for a short time, he started his own company in 1979. In addition, he has taught accounting and business administration courses for Regis University's School for Professional Studies.
In 1998 he took the coursework and passed the examination to become a Certified Senior Advisor(CSA)®.
Tom enjoys four-wheeling in his 1994 Jeep Wrangler (Tahawus = "Cloudsplitter") hiking, bicycling, and cross country skiing. He was married to the late Erin Colcannon, and has two grown children:
Ian Healy. Ian's family includes daughter-in-law Richelle Healy, grandson Patrick Joseph Healy (named for Tom's great-grandfather, the founder of the Lyon & Healy Music Co.), granddaughter Caitlin, and grandson Zachary. Ian is now a published author (see Ian's website and blog for more information).
Kristin Sommer. Kristin's family includes son-in-law Peter Sommer, and boys Joshua and Charlie. Kristin is a flute teacher and aficionado of oil painting and the harp (Lyon & Healy, of course). She plays in the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra and in the pit for Opera Fort Collins. Peter is an internationally-renowned sax player and jazz composer and professor of saxophone at Colorado State University.
When he was a teenager, Tom climbed all 46 of the highest mountains in New York State's Adirondacks, becoming an Adirondack Forty-Sixer. On a 1962 family trip to Switzerland, he climbed the Matterhorn. Later, he also climbed several of Colorado's fourteeners.
Tom belongs to the First Unitarian Church of Denver. He has attended the annual General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) several times in recent years, as a delegate from the church.
In recent years, Tom has researched his mother Trudy's family background, and discovered that he has as ancestors several rabbis in the 17th and 18th centuries in Poland and Germany (the family name is a German transliteration of the Hebrew word for Passover). This ancestry resulted in his mother's family being deported from Germany in 1940. She escaped from the Gurs concentration camp in the summer of 1941, and was able to obtain a visa to emigrate to the US, with his father's efforts. She sailed on the Excambion, the last ship to leave Europe for the US before Pearl Harbor.
Two well-known people were on the same ship: David Ben Gurion, later the first Prime Minister of the new state of Israel (he is listed in the immigration record just above Trudy's name). Edward R. Murrow was also among the passengers; he was a reporter for CBS, and his reports from Europe are iconic. Tom has no idea whether his mother met either of them.
The rest of the family escaped from Gurs a year later, and, except for his Aunt Ida (who disappeared in a Transport toward Auschwitz), escaped to Switzerland with the help of French Huguenots, hiking over the mountains by moonlight.
It's quite likely that during her escape, Trudy was either helped by, or knew of, the Unitarian Service Committee, which was started by Martha and Waitstill Sharp (now designated by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Among the Nations"), because her route through Marseille, France to Lisbon, Portugal was on the "underground railroad" they pioneered. That may be why, in the late 1940s, the family left my dad's Catholic faith and, instead of going to the Methodist church across the street from our home, drove 10 miles into Niagara Falls to attend the Unitarian Church there. In 2011, while attending the UUA General Assembly in Charlotte, NC, Tom met the great-granddaughter of the Sharps, which was quite the thrill!
CERTIFICATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS
- American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
- Colorado Society of CPAs
- Society of Certified Senior Advisors