Tom Morrissey

I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1980. I had a BS in Computer Science from the College of Engineering. I went to work for Hewlett-Packard in Cupertino, CA (the heart of the then young Silicon Valley).  I married my college sweetheart one week after graduating. She worked for Amdahl (a maker of mainframe computers).  I developed computer graphics software for HP.  It was great fun.  My first wife died in November of 1983.

Mya, Jenifer, Torrin & Tom Summer 2000

I met my second wife soon after.  We got to know each other on the ballroom dance floor.  She also worked for HP. S he had gotten her Electrical Engineering degree from Stanford in 1983. I n 1984 we moved to northern Colorado and continued to work for HP.  We were married in 1985.  I continued to develop graphics SW and HW subsystems for HP.  I represented HP on national standardization committees for computer graphics.  I also represented the United States in similar International forums.  I authored a couple of national and international standards for computer graphics and chaired some national standards committees.  I did standards work for about 10 years.  From 1988 to 1996 I managed graphics R&D efforts.  I have a patent in my name for a rather obscure technical wonder.

After having some revelations about a number of things, in 1996, I left HP, the corporate world and the paid workforce.  I guess you could say I retired.  My wife had done so a year or so earlier.  We began exploring what it means to live a sustainable lifestyle.  We owned a 307 acre farm/ranch/forest in southern Colorado.  We attempted to implement sustainable agroforestry techniques to sustain ourselves.

Since about 1981 I have been dealing with eyesight problems, which starting sometime around 2000 had some severe consequences.  I am now legally blind.  I have no sight in my left eye and the sight in my right eye is extremely limited.   

After 17 years of marriage my second wife and I divorced in 2002.   I'm single again and quite happy with it.

My days are filled with extremely varied activities including things like web site design, video editing, listening to talking books, surfing the web, cooking and helping friends with their computers and generally enjoying life.

From my lack of mention of children you can rightly conclude that I have no children.

Not a brief synopsis of my path since leaving KHS, but it hits the highlights.

If you want to see some pictures and get a feel for a bit more about what I am  up to you can visit my web site at http://tom.raresteeds.com.

Last updated: 02 April 2006