Thomas John Bata

Shoemaker to the World THOMAS JOHN BATA, CC September 17, 1914 - September 1, 2008 It is with great sadness that the Bata Family and the Bata Shoe Organization announce the sudden passing of Thomas John Bata, CC at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto at the age of 93. As "Shoemaker To The World", Tom was a man of outstanding qualities and achievements who had a positive influence on the lives of many millions of people throughout the world. He was born in Prague and educated in Czechoslovakia, England and Switzerland. His father Tomas had founded the Bata Shoe Organization in 1894. After his father's premature death in an aircraft accident in 1932, Tom was guided by his late-father's moral testament: that the Bata Shoe company was to be treated not as a source of private wealth, but as a public trust, a means of improving living standards within the community and providing customers with good value for their money. He promised to pursue the entrepreneurial and humanitarian ideals of his father. This became his life's work. Anticipating the Second World War, Tom, together with over 100 families from Czechoslovakia, moved to Canada in 1939 to develop the Bata Shoe Company of Canada centred in a town that still bears his name, Batawa, Ontario.