Obituary: Thomas Anthony Geis – Independent Rep in Arizona
Thomas A. Geis passed away peacefully with his lifelong love Beverly at his side on Jan. 31 at age 83. He was born Feb. 3, 1933 in Dayton, OH. His family moved to Phoenix in 1949 when his father, Walter Geis, realized they could play golf 365 days a year there. Tom was a passionate golfer with a low handicap who had eight holes in one.
Tom got into the electrical industry soon after graduating from Arizona State University in 1956 when he took a job with a local utility as an engineer. He and Beverly started Geis Sales Inc. and grew the independent rep agency to be one of the largest and most respected agencies in Arizona, New Mexico and southern Nevada.
He sold his agency in 1997, thinking it was time to play a bit more golf, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that staying home was not for him. To stay involved, he went to work in electrical distribution and eventually returned to the agency business with a long-time friend and competitor where he spent almost 10 years until his passing. Along the way, Tom made more friends than can be counted as he called on all parts of the industry. Tom was active in the Electric League of Arizona, NAED, NECA, IECA and was a member of NEMRA (National Electrical Manufacturers Representatives Association). He will be missed by his many friends in the electrical industry.
About the Author
Jim Lucy Blog
Chief Editor
Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.