“A life is not measured by years alone, but by the lives it touches.”
– Author unknown
Tom’s passing in December has been deeply felt. Those who knew him understood how much space he occupied—through his engagement, his presence, and his keen interest in the people around him. I will miss the gruff one-liners that belied a gentleness and genuine desire to help, the cussing that doubled as affection, and his irrepressible, childlike sense of humor. I considered Tom family, and with him gone, there is an absence that reaches into both my work and my life.
The remarks below are drawn from a short address I was honored to give at a private family memorial in January. With their permission and blessing, Fogarty Innovation will host a public celebration of Tom’s life on February 23 in Portola Valley—one we hope will reflect his love of simple things and the extraordinary professional community he built and inspired. If you’d like to join us in remembering and celebrating Tom, please register on the founder’s page of our website.
For years, I have used the terms innovator, icon, and iconoclast to describe Tom publicly. I have always been particularly fond of the last—iconoclast. Tom was never afraid to challenge untouchable assumptions or rethink entrenched ideas, usually to provoke progress, but sometimes just to stir the pot.
I first encountered Tom when I heard him speak at a sales meeting for Baxter’s cardiovascular group, which would later become Edwards Lifesciences. As you likely know, Edwards sold the Fogarty catheters. Tom was the keynote speaker.
In front of hundreds of sales representatives, Tom walked on stage and proceeded to rip into the company. As a relative newcomer to sales meetings, I was confused. Weren’t these supposed to be rah-rah sessions? Judging by the stunned looks around me, I wasn’t alone.
Years later, I learned that just before the meeting, Mike Mussallem had renegotiated Tom’s royalty agreement—and Tom was not pleased.
But I didn’t truly get to know Tom until 1999, when I joined a startup he had invested in. He later became an investor in the two companies I had the good fortune to lead.
Over the last eight years, since I took the reins at Fogarty Innovation, we grew even closer. Tom became more introspective, reflecting on his life all the way back to childhood. Growing up in a rough-and-tumble Cincinnati neighborhood shaped him, and he never lost those hard edges. Vince Gaudiani, Tom’s good friend, partner, and himself a highly respected cardiac surgeon, observed, “Tom fought like hell for everything he ever got.”
The result was a man who was truly an enigma—endlessly complex in character, yet remarkably simple and direct in his words, tastes, and desires.
He was extraordinary in his support of innovators, giving freely of his time, advice, and connections to anyone with the courage to take aim at the status quo and look for a better way. At the same time, he could be tough and uncompromising.
In my many conversations with Tom, three defining traits stood out—traits I still try to emulate:
- First, he was direct. No one ever left a conversation unsure of where Tom stood or what he thought.
- Second, he was endlessly curious. Well into his eighties, he was walking through the lab at Fogarty Innovation, picking up prototypes, asking questions, and offering advice.
- Third, he cut to the chase. He had a remarkable ability to get to the essence of a problem and imagine a novel solution. To me, this was his superpower—his genius—not only seeing clearly what is, but what could be.
In a letter read aloud at the family gathering, Mike Mussallem took this last observation one step further, pointing out how this superpower galvanized an entire ecosystem:
“Sure, he invented technologies, built companies, won prizes and even made wine, but what I remember most about Tom is how he inspired people to think more boldly. Being around Tom made you believe that no problem was too big or too complicated to tackle. He inspired me, and many, many others, to never settle for good enough.”
In our blog we have captured stories from Tom’s community that speak to exactly that: how he pushed them to think more creatively, act more boldly, and commit to the hard work of advancing patient care. This is the true measure of his legacy—one that ripples outward beyond the millions of patients worldwide whose lives have been improved and saved by his inventions, beyond the advances in surgical practice those inventions made possible, and into a future shaped by the imagination and conviction he infused into the ecosystem.
As both a defining figure in modern medtech and a character unlike any other who loved nothing more than a bit of mischief, Tom leaves an enormous absence. For the last few years, my daughter Jordyn and I used the occasion of his birthday—and my apologies here to his family and caregivers—to sneak him a contraband meal of KFC and whiskey. I was never quite sure whether he was most delighted by the food itself, the company (Jordyn, anyway), or simply the pleasure of getting away with something once again—living life on his own terms and enjoying every minute of it.
–Andrew
(The above is an excerpt from Andrew Cleeland’s column in Fogarty’s February 2026 newsletter.)