Thomas Allan Dunn (1938-2005)

Thomas Allan Dunn (1938-2005) was the American publisher and compiler behind The Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris, widely considered the longest-running periodical in the pipe world, which he produced single-handedly for forty-one years. Known to his correspondents by his initials, "TAD," Dunn ran both the magazine and the reader community that formed around it from his home in College Point, in the New York City borough of Queens.

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He was the fourth of Alice and Lawrence Dunn's eight children; the College Point house where he grew up with his siblings remained his address for the rest of his life. His schooling stayed in the same neighborhood: the local St. Fidelis school, followed by Flushing High School. In 1957 he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, trained at the engineer school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and reached the rank of Specialist 5 (sergeant) by the time of his discharge in 1964. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1969 from New York University's Washington Square College of Arts and Science. Professionally he followed his father into insurance, spending his career at Metropolitan Life in Manhattan, earning the Life Management Institute's fellow designation in 1977, and rising to a managerial post in the company's human resources division. He took early retirement in 1991 to care for his ailing parents.