**Thomas Edward Matheson**
(aka Tom)

*Physical Description:* a balding, middle-aged (40s) man, in good shape
for his age but still a tad overweight. What hair he has left is dark,
streaked with grey. Tends to wear jeans, a t-shirt, and a flannel
shirt when the weather is appropriate. Wears a somewhat battered steel
ring, MIT class of 2035. Radiates a sense of "engineer", and always carries
an overabundance of potentially useful items.

*Public History:* Grew up in suburbia, went to MIT. Got a little too attached
to his alcohol, and lost several good jobs to it. Spent the next
twenty years moving from job to job, in every field imaginable. Trying
to get the whole list from him produces an eventual "and some other stuff
I can't remember", but it includes activities ranging from high-tech
engineering to construction work to park rangering to gardening and landscape
design. And everything in between. About five years ago, he ran into
the true dangers of alcoholism- quite literally, drunk driving very much
sucks- and has been fighting it ever since. Don't try offering him a drink.
The child he ran into lived, but he's fiercely defensive of perceived
innocents and children today, as though to make up for the life he
nearly ruined. Every day is something of a second chance, and Tom is
very serious about it. On the few occaisions you might have seen him
drunk, he tends to start rambling about guilt and penance and the horrors
of alcoholism before slipping under the table. You tend not to see him
for a good week after that, and he doesn't look too good. Hasn't happened
in a couple of years, though.

He joined the company not long after his reformation, and works as the
general-purpose handyman and useful guy. He repairs equipment, maintains
the buildings, opens locked doors, and occaisionally cooks lunch. He's
got a lab in the basement, mostly containing electronics, and if you
need something electrical rigged up he can probably arrange it. 

[Tom Public Character Sheet]

[Tom Private Character Sheet]