George Leo Tomkin

George Leo Tomkin, 89, died Sunday, April 14, 2024, at Center for Hope Hospice in Scotch Plains. He was a resident of Scotch Plains for almost 60 years.
George's Russian family was from Odessa and Moscow. His parents escaped from the Soviet Union during Stalin's initial terror campaign by illegally leaving the Tran-Siberian railway after pretending to be settlers to Birobidzhan, Stalin's ill-fated attempt to establish a Jewish "autonomous region" in Siberia. Traveling by night, his parents and older sister eventually reached Harbin, Manchuria, where George was born.
His family eventually moved to Shanghai, where he grew up during the Japanese occupation. They were admitted to the U.S. in 1947 just before the Communist takeover of China and moved to Brooklyn where he graduated from Erasmus High School.
After service in the U.S. Army at then-Fort Bragg as part of the psychological warfare brigade attached to the Green Berets, he graduated from NYU with a BS in Civil Engineering.
He worked at a series of major engineering firms, including helping to build U.S. early warning anti-missile radar facilities in Greenland in the 1950s and U.S. nuclear submarines in Maine and South Carolina. He later founded The Tomkin Company, a small civil engineering firm based in Fanwood.
Outside of his firm, he served on the Scotch Plains Planning Board for 20 years, including as chairman. He also was a longtime volunteer at the Children's Specialized Hospital, the VA Hospital in Basking Ridge, and as a shepherd for Russian and Vietnamese immigrants.
Surviving are his wife, Renee "Ruth" Tomkin; his son, Robert (and his wife, Susanne Dieper); his daughter, Lee M. Stern (and her partner, Mathew Klein); and four grandchildren, Christina, Alexandra, Jonas and Jake.
Services will be held at Memorial Funeral Home, 155 South Ave., Fanwood, on Wednesday, April 17th at 11 AM. The family will receive friends one hour prior to the service.
For anyone who would like to make a memorial donation in George's name, the family asks that you consider Tunnel to Towers Foundation or Ronald McDonald House.