Thomas
David Coe
Thomas David Coe, 79, of Kelsey Road, Boxford, husband of Jane
(Shriver) Coe, died Monday August 17, 2009, three days before his 80th
birthday in the Portsmouth Regional Hospital. He collapsed suddenly
due to cardiac arrest on August 6 while working at his place of
business, QA Technology Co. Inc., in Hampton, NH, and remained in a
coma until his death.
Tom was born in
Jamestown, NY on August 20, 1929, son of David Farnham and Isabelle
Jorgenson Coe. He graduated from Jamestown High School and attended
the Choate School in Wallingford, CT and then went on to receive a
BS degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, graduating in 1952. After serving in the Air Force,
including working at the Cambridge Research Center on Hanscom Air
Force Base in Lexington for two years, he married Jane in 1957 and
co-founded Wakefield Engineering Inc., Wakefield, which
designed and manufactured cooling devices for the electronics
industry. He later sold this business and founded QA Technology
Company in 1980 to manufacture probes used for testing electronic
circuit boards. He was the President of this company until his
death. As a very talented engineer he played a major role in the
development of the company’s products as well as the automated
equipment used to produce it. QA has over 70 employees at present
and also recently introduced a line of hyperboloid contacts, in
addition to probes, that are used in electrical connectors. His
sons, David and Mark, work at the company.
Tom brought his
engineering skills and perfectionism to his hobbies as well as his
work. His large and bountiful vegetable garden was not only a
"perfect" garden, but always shared with friends. As a beekeeper he
always generously shared his knowledge and honey with others. No one
who knew Tom ever ran out of honey, or his raspberry jam. And,
whether he was ice fishing or salmon fishing, he included his
friends and family -- sharing the fish he caught and many times
treating those same family and friends to fishing trips in Alaska.
If anything mechanical needed work in his home or in any of his
children’s, that would become his project. When he was done, he
always left things working more efficiently, reliably and
productively than when they were new.
In addition to
his wife Jane of fifty-two years he leaves four children, David
Coe and his wife Linda of Hampton Falls, NH, Mark Coe and his wife
Linda of Ipswich, Lisa Coe of Bradford, and Beth Coe Wheeler and her
husband Paul of Mansfield, and seven grandchildren. He has lived in
Boxford for thirty seven years.
A memorial service
will be held at the Conference Center located to the rear of the
Best Western Inn at Hampton, 815 Lafayette Rd (Rt. 1), Hampton, NH
on Friday afternoon, August 28, at 2pm. (The Inn is ¾ mile north of
the intersection of US Rte.1 and High St.) In lieu of flowers,
please consider making a contribution in his memory to a charity of
your choice. Arrangements under the direction of the Whittier-Porter
Funeral Home of Ipswich.
