Victor Tom 2022
Victor Tom, District 7910
Rotary Club of Bedford (MA)
 
Victor joined the Rotary Club of Bedford (MA) in 2006, becoming a third generation Rotarian following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He served as its President in 2009 and again in 2014 (for 4 months). He has served numerous roles in District 7910.  In the focus area of service, he has served as District Grant Treasurer (3 years), District Grant Subcommittee Chair (3 years), led a Global Grant for an educational program in Kenya, led a group of Rotarians volunteer for the IDEAS Global Challenge at the MIT PKG Public Service Center (5 years), brought in two major companies to join a multi-club multi-district Rise Against Hunger food-packing project (8 years), and served on Bedford’s Bicycle Safety Day project in conjunction with Bedford Police, purchasing children helmets and fitting them (13 years).  Victor also has a keen interest in mentoring our youth. He has been an instructor at RYLA, established and advises the MIT Rotaract Club, and started the BRIC2 program (Bedford Rotary IDEAS Community Challenge) in which elementary students learn video-editing skills and apply them to generating videos for the Rotary Club and the town and gain public service credit. Victor has also served as the district Bandey-Hefler Fellowship Chair for a Rotary exchange between D7910 and two districts southwest of London (6 years). Victor is a Paul Harris Fellow +6, a Benefactor and a Bequest Society Level 1.
 
Professionally, Victor received his BS, MS and ScD from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science with a specialization in computer vision.  Dr. Tom is currently a chief scientist at BAE Systems, FAST Labs in Burlington, MA helping to solve critical defense problems.  In non-defense work, he helped win the America’s Cup in 1992 and developed the first practical baseball pitch tracking system for Major League Baseball, revolutionizing the way umpires call balls and strikes. His wife, Sze-Wen Kuo, is a retired computer systems analyst and will be President of the Rotary Club of Bedford in 2020-21.
 
One of Victor and Sze-Wen’s interest has been creating a network of Rotarians who are MIT alumni around the world interested in supporting innovative humanitarian projects around the globe.
 
Victor lives in Bedford with his wife of forty years. They have two wonderful daughters, Corina and Kristine. Corina works for Aclima in San Francisco, is married to Tom, also a mechanical engineer, and has a 4 year old daughter Aeva and a 1 year old son Orion. Kristine works for Apple and is married to Kellen, also a mechanical engineer.