By Nate Leskovic
Times Staff
5/22/08

(previous)
These glimpses of the Gavins on Milton sidewalks do not, however, even begin to reflect the depth and breadth of their lives. Thirty-five years old, Tom heads a successful software company in Boston, and serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations (a couple of which he helped found). The Boston Business Journal has recognized Tom’s work twice. Not only did they name him personally in their “40 Under 40” list, an award handed out each year to a select group of young Boston business leaders, the Journal also recognized Tom’s company, Eze Castle Software (Eze rhymes with says), as the number one best place to work in Massachusetts for mid-sized companies.
Audrey is a powerhouse in her own right. In addition to being the mother of four children under the age of six, she holds a Harvard graduate degree and co-founded Milton Helping Hands with Sue Riley. She worked as director of student activities at Curry College for a year, and now works as part-time counselor at St. Mary’s Women and Children’s Center, serving Boston area homeless women and their families.
Tom grew up as one of eight children, with parents he calls “hyper community involved.” The valedictorian and Xaverian Award recipient of his 1991 Xaverian Brothers High School class, he took his early exposure to social responsibility to heart. A magna cum laude Harvard graduate in history, Tom had started in economics, but figured “if I was going to get a liberal arts degree, it might as well be in something I enjoyed studying.” After four years, Tom pondered what to do with his degree “besides getting all the yellow questions right in a game of Trivial Pursuit.” Despite the fact he had always assumed he would be a lawyer, he resisted the predictable law school option. Instead, he applied (successfully) for the prestigious Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship.
As a Rockefeller Fellow, he worked for a year in Central America in environmental education, translated a children’s book, served in a soup kitchen for Nicaraguan refugees, and chopped trails through the jungle with a machete. “It’s a unique fellowship,” Tom explains. “There are no academic rules or requirements. You just go live in a place for a year, and get to know the culture.” That culture continues to find a place in the Gavins’ lives in the person of their son, Charlie, whom they adopted from Guatemala when he was four months old.
After giving the legal profession one last shot with six months of paralegal work, Tom finally admitted to himself that he just didn’t want to be a lawyer. Instead, he joined a boutique management consulting firm, jumping into what he calls his business “boot camp.” Two years later, he moved to a start-up technology firm looking to bring on a business generalist who could make them into a viable enterprise. Within a decade, Tom had shepherded the company, Eze Castle Software, through a leveraged buyout into its current form as a stand-alone company within the BNY ConvergEx Group.
But a commitment broader than career ambition informs Tom’s impressive accomplishments. Not only does he serve on the boards of his high school and the Rockefeller Fellowship. Tom sits on the advisory board of VE Global (Voluntarios de la Esperanza), an organization funded by the Rockefeller Foundation that brings volunteers of diverse backgrounds and nationalities together to work with children in Chile.
And within his own company, Tom created ECS Charity Fund, a nonprofit extension of Eze. Young employees, hired for their leadership potential, run the 501(c)(3) themselves, working to make a direct impact on families in need with support tailored to specific problems. Best of all, it gives the employees specific resume experience in nonprofit management as they move out into the world.
Comfortably settled in the town’s multicultural and diverse community, the Gavins look ahead. Young Jack Gavin starts kindergarten at St. Agatha’s this fall. And they can’t wait for a restaurant to open in Milton Village. Maybe you’ll see them: yet another place for the wonderfully “crazy family that walks” to walk to in their hometown.