Tom Lord passing

[Andy Tai <atai@atai.org>]

Thomas Lord was an early (or the first?) maintainer of guile

from https://berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2022-06-26/article/49837

Obituaries

Thomas Lord
1966-2022

Trina Pundurs
Monday June 27, 2022 - 05:21:00 PM

Thomas Lord was born April 26, 1966 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where
he lived until the age of 10 when his family relocated to western
Massachusetts.

He graduated from Phillips Academy Andover in 1984.

He attended Johns Hopkins University and Carnegie Mellon University,
and in 1987 began his career as a software engineer at Carnegie
Mellon, working on the Andrew Project.

During this time he became interested in the free software movement
(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html) and thereafter
dedicated himself to developing and supporting free software (aka
libre software or open source). He worked as an employee of the Free
Software Foundation, developing for the GNU Project, for several years
in the early 1990s.

In 1995 he first moved to Berkeley and began spending time in People’s
Park, a place and a society that held great meaning for him.

He returned to Pittsburgh PA in 1998, then came back to the Bay Area
in 2001 and relocated permanently to Berkeley in 2004.

In 2007 he married Trina Pundurs, his life partner since 1992.

Upon settling in Berkeley, he began engaging with city politics and
policymaking. His interest led him to contribute to the Berkeley Daily
Planet, and his work with Planet editor Becky O’Malley drew him
further into city and regional issues, especially housing,
displacement, and homelessness. In 2016 he was appointed by
then-Councilmember Cheryl Davila to serve on the City Housing Advisory
Commission.

In 2018 he was profoundly moved by a news report about scientists
weeping in the aisles at COP 24, where the IPCC presented its Special
Report on the impact of global warming of 1.5° C (“IPCC SR15”). Upon
studying SR15, and following the work of Greta Thunberg, he became a
tireless advocate of speaking the truth about the climate emergency
and treating it as an actual emergency.

In addition to his climate and housing activism, he spent several
years volunteering with students at Longfellow Middle School as part
of the Writer Coach Connection program.

He died unexpectedly this week of a massive brain hemorrhage.

Thomas is survived by his wife Trina Pundurs, mother Luanna
Pierannunzi, uncle Christopher Lord, aunt Sharlene Jones, and many
cousins and extended family.