Thomas C. Kuchenberg

Thomas C. Kuchenberg, a retired government official and author, died on April 13, 2024, at his home on Capitol Hill, after returning from a three month cruise through the South Pacific.

Tom was well known in his local community from his work on the Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee and as a patron of the performing arts. His civic work on the Hill dated back nearly 30 years when he co-founded a group to educate homeowners on how to understand and challenge their property tax assessment. Tom and his late wife, Geri Rosen, loved to travel and experience different lands and cultures and spent much of their retirement pursuing this hobby. They traveled by plane, train, bus, car, and ship and visited all seven continents. He spent summers in a cottage that he and Geri built on Cape Breton in northern Nova Scotia reading and following his other pastime, the weather.

Born in Marinette, Wisconsin in Door County in 1942, Tom grew up with a love and admiration for the water and natural beauty. He worked on the Great Lakes as a merchant marine, in Alaska on the Trans Alaska Pipeline, and doing political advance work in his native Wisconsin. During his time on the Great Lakes in the 1970s, he co-authored a book on the environmental threat to one of the nation's greatest natural resources called "Reflections in a Tarnished Mirror: The Use and Abuse of the Great Lakes."

He came to Washington, DC initially to attend Georgetown University in the 1960s and came back later in the 1970s to attend law school at George Washington University. While in law school he worked at the iconic Georgetown music venue, the Cellar Door and in the U.S. Senate under the patronage of Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire, where he met his future wife, Geri. Later in his career he worked in the office of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services on a myriad of health and social issues, most extensively with the Food and Drug Administration. After retiring from federal service, he focused on travel with Geri and his civic work at Eastern Market and in the community. He and Geri often opened their home to visitors and offered affordable accommodations to young interns and staffers working on Capitol Hill.

Tom was known far and wide as a teller of tall tales, frequently in long holiday letters and on Facebook. He often amazed himself that others took his outlandish words as fact, especially one memorable fable that reported on the high winds that had lofted his granddaughter Meera off the street and into a tree in Lincoln Park, where she had to be extricated by a squad of trained rescue cats. New friends and family were warned that if they took the bait in one of Tom's stories, they might be way down the road before they started to question its veracity.

He is survived by his three stepchildren Deb Sawislak of Seattle, Ellen Sawislak of Olympia, and Josh Sawislak of Alexandria, VA, as well as four grandchildren and friends across the globe. Wherever weather is discussed, tall tales are told, or someone is planning an exciting adventure, Tom will be there in spirit, if not in person. Any desired donations should be made to a local civic or charitable organization in his honor. A celebration of life will be planned later this year.