Robert M. Thomas Jr. passed away on March 28, 2021, in New York City, after a year-long illness. He was 80 years old.
Bob spent his long and interesting career at the New York-based law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, traveling far and wide and serving clients and his firm on almost every continent; but Bob retained the kindhearted charm of his native Kansas to the very end. Bob joined S&C in 1969 and became a partner in 1975. He headed the firm’s London office in the early 1980s, during the early days of American law firms there, and he served as managing partner of the firm’s corporate practice in the late 1980s. As the capstone of his career, Bob managed the firm’s fledgling Beijing office at the turn of this century, symbolizing the vast changes he and partners of his generation had seen in the breadth of the firm’s practice during his 40-year career.
Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1941, Bob graduated from the University of Kansas in 1962 and spent the next two years in Europe with his classmate and Beta Theta Pi fraternity brother, Tu Jarvis, directing student exchange programs for the People to People International Foundation established by President Dwight Eisenhower. Bob then began Harvard Law School, and it was in Washington, D.C., during one of his summers as a law school student working as a Capitol Hill intern, that Bob met another intern and college classmate, Rebecca Myers, who hailed from Salina, Kansas. Four years after they met, Bob proposed marriage to Becky on a bus ride down Fifth Avenue in New York City, and they were married in 1965.
In August 1966, two months after Bob’s graduation from law school and his receiving an Africa-Asia Studies Fellowship funded by the Ford Foundation, he and Becky stepped off a plane in the town of Maun, Okavango District, Botswana, where Bob served a variety of roles during Botswana’s transition to independence, culminating in his appointment as District Commissioner for Botswana’s largest land district, Ngamiland, in charge of hospitals, schools, courts, and public safety. Bob made the rounds in a pale blue Jeep on dirt paths through the bush, and he and Becky were well-known, trusted and loved during their two years there.
In addition to Bob’s many professional contributions to Sullivan & Cromwell, he and Becky served as warm and generous mentors to both young lawyers and their spouses and partners, opening their homes in New York City and Sheffield, Massachusetts to an entire generation of younger lawyers, couples, and families. They have shown the way for that generation to aspire to be at least half as generous in spirit as Bob and Becky were.
Bob lived an active life beyond his law firm. A trustee of the Sheffield Land Trust and a life trustee of KU Endowment of the University of Kansas, as well as a trustee and treasurer of the Hellen Keller Foundation, Bob brought professional care and attention to all those causes.
Bob and Becky traveled the world so that Bob could enjoy hunting quail and grouse, as well as fly fishing, with his many shooting and fishing friends. Bob also loved vintage cars and the company of people who valued repairing, cleaning, and driving them. A highlight of Bob’s vintage car collecting came in the spring of 2019, when his 1929 Bentley was awarded the Best in Class trophy at the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. Bob had a keen eye for not only fine automobiles but also fine wine and shotguns, collecting more than his fair share of all of them, and he loved sharing them with the many friends that he and Becky made in New York, Sheffield, and around the world.
Bob is survived by his beloved wife Becky, their children Brooke and Austin, his sister Virginia Arthur and her husband Terry, Becky’s brother Rusty Myers, and numerous nieces and nephews.
The family will mark Bob’s passing in a memorial service on his beloved Bow Wow Road in Sheffield. Contributions in lieu of flowers may be made in Bob’s memory to KU Endowment, Gift Processing Department, P.O. Box 928, Lawrence, KS 66044-0928.
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