Thomas A. Pettit

​Tom was born in Puerto Rico where his father was serving as a Lutheran Missionary. When the US entered WWII the family moved back to the Continental US.   After graduating from high school and spending a year at college, Tom enlisted in the Navy in 1958.  

He would spend two years aboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway making two deployments to South East Asia. Followed by two years in Hawaii where, in 1962, he was caught up in the Cuban Missile Crisis and was involuntarily extended.  He was transferred the USS Samuel N. Moore, a destroyer.  It was his time in the military that taught him the necessity of working together and to take responsibility for his actions. 

Tom was discharged from the Navy in 1964 and attended Marietta College, in Marietta, Ohio, where he met Daille.  Tom ended up transferring to Parsons College, in Fairfield, Iowa, graduating in 1967 with a BA.  Daille had graduated earlier and the two were married shortly thereafter. 

Tom had responded to an advertisement from the Department of State during the summer of 1966. He passed a series of exams and a formal background investigation. Tom joined the State Department in September 1967.  Tom’s first assignment was the US Consulate General in Jerusalem, arriving in early December of ‘67.  

For the next 30 years years, Tom would go on to serve in 7 more countries (Belgium, Brazil, Indonesia, Suriname, Germany, Japan, and the Dominican Republic), struggle with 9 languages on 4 continents, and deal with the birth of two children.  In addition, Tom spent a year in Africa filling in for vacant Embassy administrative management positions in 7 countries (Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Cape Verde, Benin).  Tom also created regional procurement support offices in Bonn and Tokyo. At the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tom was sent to Belarus to establish an Embassy in Minsk.

Tom transferred his SAR membership to the Fort Harrison Chapter in February 2005.  He was the recording secretary for several years and then served as 1st Vice-President for two years and President for two years. 

Tom’s paternal 4th great-grandfather, Lewis Ferris, served in the fledging US Navy during the Revolutionary War. After the war he migrated from his birthplace in Connecticut to Manchester, Indiana, where he died in 1819.  Family records make reference to the cemetery in Ferrisville or Ferrisville Cemetery, but the records are not specific. 

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