The Current Society Steering Board
Dave Baine ~ President
Steve Ellis ~ Vice President
Jessica Bonebright ~ Secretary
Bob Ferguson ~ Treasurer
Dwight Rousu ~ Steering Board Chairman
Tom McCarty, ERS and SPEEA past president, and inventor of the environmentally friendly burn barrel, died at his home July 27, 2021.
McCarty, 77, served as SPEEA president from 2010 to 2014. An electronics and electrical engineer at Boeing for more than 41 years, he retired in 2014 and lived in Seattle with his wife of 13 years Sara Arnold.
In addition to SPEEA president, McCarty served terms as SPEEA treasurer, Professional Negotiation Team member, Council Rep, Area Rep, IFPTE vice
president and more recently president of the Engineering Retirees Society (ERS). In 2018, he received a SPEEA Lifetime Achievement Award.
Tom was union through and through,
said Joel Funfar, past president who worked with McCarty on several Negotiation Teams. He always had
time to talk and share his wisdom. I learned a lot from him.
Born May 10, 1944, McCarty was the oldest of six children whose parents were both teachers and union members. A SPEEA member his entire career,
the one-day strike in 1993 increased his own union interest. Soon after, he became a Council Rep. Early in the strike of 2000, McCarty heard the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the picket line open burn barrels were a problem. While others worried, McCarty dove into solving
the problem. Within days, he had designed EPA-compliant burn barrels and was delivering them to the picket lines. In 2020, McCarty completed and
published Picket Line,
a book about the 40-day strike.
McCarty was preceded in death by his first wife, Betty Jean and son Corey. A private, family service is planned with a public picnic in his
honor to be held at a later day.
(Courtesy of SPEEA)
