The quiet man behind the scenes

United Way honors Thomas P. Sullivan for community service, By Tony Houston Monroe - More times than not, people call him Tommy. He’s a man who prefers the background to the limelight. But for his “value of and concern for people (as) demonstrated through their vision, leadership, service and commitment to the community,” Thomas P. Sullivan was named the recipient of the Orange County United Way’s Marion S. Murphy “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” award this March. One wonders how Sullivan, the funeral director and president of both William F. Hogan Funeral Home in Highland Mills and Smith, Seaman and Quackenbush Funeral Home in Monroe, came to the area and where he got his “value of and concern for people.” Born on Saint Patrick’s Day of 1953 in Rockville Centre on Long Island, Sullivan was one of seven children in an Irish-Catholic family. In high school, he was more dedicated to baseball and wrestling than to academic pursuits, but, he added in a recent interview, “I always wanted to be a funeral director.” He attended SUNY Technical College 300 miles upstate in Canton where he worked part-time for a funeral home. Many upstate funeral homes provided ambulance service in those days, and Sullivan often drove the ambulance. Sullivan completed his classroom education in 1973, and needed a one-year residency to become licensed. He was hired in January 1973 by Tim Quackenbush, then president of Smith, Seaman and Quackenbush Funeral Home in Monroe, and began work in May. “Tim told me he wouldn’t hire a licensed funeral director and after my residency I would have to go elsewhere,” said Sullivan. “That was fine with me; I planned to go into business on Long Island.” During his residency, Quackenbush expanded the business to include monuments. With the main business growing and the monuments added to the workload, Quackenbush had a change of mind (and heart). He offered the newly minted licensed funeral director a permanent job. Sullivan, abandoning his plans for Long Island, accepted. Continued business growth led Quackenbush to begin an addition to the funeral home in early 1983. Quackenbush died in July of that year, however, before the addition was completed. Although Sullivan was uncertain about his future with the funeral home, Quackenbush’s bankers and lawyers told him not to worry. A closing at the Bank of New York’s Middletown office in the fall of 1983 finalized a construction loan and transferred ownership of the business to Thomas P. Sullivan — with no cash changing hands at the closing. Sullivan had merely been asked to “show up at the bank to sign some papers,” as he put it. This, apparently, was his first award for “service and commitment,” and it came from his old boss (and friend) — Tim Quackenbush. Having become secure in his business, Sullivan didn’t disappoint. “Success is not measured in dollars; it’s how much you help others,” he said. For more than three decades, Sullivan has been doing exactly that. He is on the board of director of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce and serves as a trustee of Sacred Heart Church in Monroe. He has been a volunteer firefighter for the last 31 years, including four years as chief of the Monroe Fire Department. He responds to as many as 200 fire emergency calls per year. At one point he did some driving for the Monroe Ambulance Corps, just as he had done as a college student in upstate New York. Sullivan has been a volunteer at Hospice of Orange and Sullivan Counties for 18 years. Two years ago, as chair of the Capital Campaign Committee, he was instrumental in raising $4 million for the new Kaplan Family Hospice Residence. “A dying person needs to die with dignity, be comfortable and die at peace — and hospice care makes this possible,” Tom said. “Hospice care makes the funeral director’s role much easier because the family has become more acclimated to the idea of the loss of a loved one.” Sullivan said he sees volunteerism on the decline. Some volunteers are being pushed aside as the services they performed are increasingly being provided by business or government, such as professional firefighters and welfare. Some volunteering, such as teaching and firefighting, now involve mandated training and continuing education. Some people, with long working hours and extensive commutes, just don’t have time. When the subject of public office came up, Sullivan said, “I’m asked all the time to run for one office or another, but politics can upset the apple cart and I stay out.” He does, however, support a proposal for Orange County to abandon its current coroner system and establish a medical examiner’s office. “The time has come to upgrade the system.” he said. “A medical examiner is more professional and would be less of a conflict since the coroners are all funeral directors.” Sullivan and his wife, Janet, who works in the business, live in Monroe. They have a son who is an engineer and a daughter working as a physician’s assistant — frequently on heart transplants. “I like to be in the background and get going to where the need is now,” Sullivan said. He is in no way anxious to include his name on either of his two funeral homes, and what he wants said of him after his passing is: “He was my friend.” Those are the words Monroe Deputy Town Clerk Patty Kasch used to describe him. “He’s a friend and very community minded,” she replied to the open-ended question. “Tommy believes in giving back to the community that helped him.” Patty’s late husband, Patrick H. Kasch, recruited Sullivan into the Monroe Fire Department where both men reached the position of chief. And Sullivan was there for the Kasch family at the time of Patrick’s passing. “Tommy is an angel here on earth,” Patty said. “I do believe that he was put here to help people.”