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W. Thomas Richards was born in Denver Colorado in 1936 and is a fourth generation native of the State. He comes from a very large family related to the spouses of the famous Mountain Men, Kit Carson and Charles Bent. Thomas is the oldest of eight children and went to work when he was thirteen. He had many different jobs such as school sweeper boy, carpenters helper, plumber’s
helper, painter, gas station attendant, and general laborer for a building contractor. He remained working right through his 1955 graduation from South High School.
One month after exiting high school, while working as a truck driver delivering large blocks of ice for the Maddox Ice Company, he was hired by the Denver Water Company and assigned to their Engineering Department. For the first five years he was trained for many jobs working as a surveyor, construction inspector, and draftsman. He worked on numerous construction projects for dams, reservoirs, tunnels, diversion canals, and filter plants.
In 1960 he was drafted into the United States Army and was stationed in Munich
Germany. He worked as a Specialist in 'A' Battery's Fire Direction Control, where he used slide rules and maps to compute the data needed for the cannons to hit their targets during the many fire missions. His outfit was advenually sent to Berlin where the Russians began building the wall.
After leaving the military he returned to the Water Department to the same department he left when he was drafted. Tom soon met Patricia Lewine Rebich, whom he fell in love with and married. After the first son was born, Tom went back to school on the GI Bill. He attended classes each night after working forty hours a week at his day job. Since Colorado University insisted that he had to live on the Boulder campus in order to graduate, he transferred all his credits to Metro State College where he obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in both Civil and Electrical Engineering.
He took both State exams to become a registered professional Engineer and Land Surveyor. His State registration number is 9330 which shows that he is one of their older members.
In 1985, Tom was having a mid-life crises. Not only did he have all three son's in Colorado State University, but his wife, Patricia, was also attending the University of Phoenix while working full time at the City of Denver. Family life had become non-existent and he found himself alone most of the time. By accident, when trying to help his oldest son, he was offered a job to have his picture on billboards Nation wide for a cigarette company. When he turned that offer down, his wife gave him a tongue lashing for the loss of the needed revenue. Tuition for college
was costing him $25,000 a year. This started him in a new career as a male model, which he modeled for Fashion Bar, K. G. Mens Store, Cabela's catalog, and brochures for a number of hotels and restaurants. Tom eventually changed into media doing TV commercials and Industrial Films. This latter activity required acting lessons which were fun and filled Tom's life with a very needed change. It was during his dramatic training that his acting coach, Molly Benson, observed his talent for telling stories. She assigned him the task of writing a screenplay and never gave up on him until it was complete. It was because of her tenacity that Tom began to write.
After thirty-six years and ten months of service, the Denver Water Department offered everyone in the company, with enough time and age, a special retirement. The offer was overwhelming. Tom retired from the Denver Water Department as a middle manager where he supervised 200 plus employees. He was only fifty-five years old but knew it was time to leave. He never missed the job, but still misses the people.
Within two months, retirement became a burden rather than a luxury, and Tom went looking for something to keep him busy. Since he always loved airplanes and had a passion for travel, he put in applications with all the airlines. He was soon hired by United Airlines as a ramp worker handling baggage and loading and unloading airplanes. Whereas he was often encouraged to enter management, he refused because his job as a rampie gave him the flexibility to trade time and take 6 to 12 day vacation every five weeks. It was a benefit not available to management. Although the work of a rampie was a job filled with hard physical labor it became Tom's most favorite place to be when not traveling or playing with grandkids. If Tom were to go back to any job he ever had before, working as a rampie around airplanes would be it.
Since his wife, Patricia, had taken training to be a travel agent, her IDA number allowed hotels to give either 50% reduction in price or more. Between Pat's hotel discounts and Tom's travel benefits, they were able to live a life style only available to the very wealthy. Life was good for nearly ten years as they traveled together to nearly every State of the Union and forty-nine foreign countries. They rode camels through the desert, elephants through the jungles, took helicopters through the Andes, swam with the sharks at the great barrier reef, and flew ultra-light aircraft over the Everglades.
Tom's life came tumbling down in January 2002 when it was discovered that his wife,
Patricia, had a cancerous tumor in her colon. Although they both planned for her to beat the disease, she died on July 6, 2002. Although he misses her terribly, he is thankful for the forty years they shared together. She will live in his heart forever.
Tom continues to travel the world and experience the cultures of other people. He has added dozen more countries to his list of travels since Patricia's death. He feels like he is the most lucky person in the world. He has a close relationship with all his grandkids and spends a lot of
time with his family. His three sons keep him always occupied. Tom has many hobbies besides traveling and writing. He loves to read, ski, fly ultra-light aircraft, scuba dive, ride horses, go to movies, hunt, fish, play with his grandchildren and has recently taken up skydiving. He also has started taking dance lessons with his granddaughters and niece, Kristie.
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