Tom Garvey:TOM GARVEY, who died suddenly last month in Brussels, was a former head of the Irish Export Board, the first chief executive of An Post and occupied a series of high-level posts in the European Commission dealing with the environment and eastern Europe.
He was a man of outstanding talents and in retirement continued his work for the protection of the environment, as well as lecturing in universities in the US and South Africa.
He was born in Dublin on May 27th, 1936. His father, also called Tom, was a civil servant in the Department of Agriculture. Tom junior was educated at St Mary's College, Rathmines, where he also learned to play rugby and cricket.
He became an accomplished piano player and was in demand at student dances. Music later became one of his passions and with his wife Ellen (nee Devine) he visited music festivals all over Europe. They met when singing at a Mozart Mass as members of the choir in UCD.
He studied French and economics and took an MA in economics in 1957. After a brief stint with AC Nielsen, he joined the Irish Export Board, thecalled Coras Tráchtála. He moved quickly up the executive ladder and was appointed general manager at the young age of 33 to succeed Michael Killeen who went to head the IDA.
As chief executive of Coras, Garvey took a special interest in the design section when this was a controversial subject in Ireland. He was appointed chairman of the second design council where he had to mediate between competing interests.
He was an ardent supporter of Irish involvement in Europe and in 1977 was appointed the first EEC delegate to Nigeria. While there he took up golf, which was to become a favourite sport for the rest of his life.
In 1980 he returned to Ireland and was appointed the first chief executive of An Post following the break-up of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. He worked closely with his chairman, Feargal Quinn, preparing for the launch of An Post with its 11,500 employees as a commercial State company.
In 1983, he made what was to become a permanent move to Brussels where he was appointed a director in the Directorate-General for the Internal Market and Industrial Affairs of the Commission. He was closely involved in the preparation of the White Paper which led to the achievement of the Single European Market.
When communism collapsed in eastern Europe, he was assigned in 1990 to head the EU's aid and restructuring programme for the area, known by the acronym, Phare. This was an important first step in what would be the eventual membership of the former communist states in the EU. Through his work in this area, Garvey made many friends in these countries who have paid warm tributes to his efforts on their behalf at what was a very difficult time.
In 1992, he was appointed deputy director-general in the Commission for the Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection. It was a period when the EU's environmental policy was developing fast. He also saw a way to combine the environment with his passion of golf by promoting European green flag awards for new courses that were developed and maintained in an environmentally friendly way.
After retirement in 2000, he continued to head up environmental projects in eastern Europe. He was appointed chairman of the international task force to investigate an incident in Romania where thousands of tonnes of toxic sludge from a gold mine were deposited into major rivers including the Danube. Other areas where he did unpaid work for accession and environmental projects were Hungary, Moldova and the Baltic region.
He was a visiting lecturer in the European Union Centre at the University of Pittsburgh and at the University of Cape Town. He was a life fellow of the Irish Management Institute and of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and helped to set up the latter in Brussels. He was a founder chairman of Golf Environment Europe and a vice-chairman of the Irish Institute of European Affairs, Louvain, Belgium.
Thanks to his varied career and work, he established a network of friends across Europe and in the US.
He had the great pleasure several weeks ago of watching his grandson Tom playing on the winning team in Twickenham in the English schools junior cup competition.
He is survived by his wife Ellen, sons James and Peter, daughters Elizabeth and Sylvie, brother John, and sister Mary.
Tom Garvey: born May 27th, 1936; died April 11th, 2008