07/22/2026
It is with great sadness that we share this news about our friend, colleague, mentor, confidante, past president, Captain K2, Tom Beach, who will be greatly missed by so many of us in the EWSRA community.
Thomas McCall Beach passed away peacefully at the age of 79 on Sunday, June 14, 2026 at Saratoga Hospital, surrounded by his loving family.
Tom was born in Hartford, CT, on November 6, 1946, to Warren Beach and Janet Sessions Beach. He is survived by his wife, Johnna Babiarz Beach, his daughters Jennifer Powers (Mike Carvalho), Lindsay Petersen (Rick Petersen), Alexis Beach (Connie Rourke), and four grandchildren, Emma and William Carvalho, and Eric and Eleanore Petersen. He was the oldest of four siblings, predeceased by his brothers Timothy and James (“Steve”), and is survived by his sister Sally Beach (Bill Allen).
He graduated from Williams College in 1968 with a degree in psychology, where he was a member of the Ephlats a ca****la group. Tom was especially proud of the records the group made together, and of the road trips they took packed into his prized silver-and-white ’57 Chevy Bel Air.
Tom enlisted in the Army after graduating from college and, after basic training and preliminary medic training, spent the duration of his service coordinating VA benefits at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado.
After his discharge from the Army, Tom took his first job in the ski industry at Recreation Unlimited Ski Shop in New Jersey. In 1976, he learned that K2 Skis' sales rep had been poached by a rival ski company. He bought a ShortLine bus ticket into New York City, wearing his one good suit and met his soon-to-be boss, Mac, at the hotel bar.
On Friday the 13th he got THE CALL, and spent the next 30 years as K2’s Mid-Atlantic sales rep, driving to sporting goods stores and ski areas across the region, conducting clinics to share his knowledge with store staff and helping skiers find the right equipment. The “Green Book”, the guide he wrote and printed each year to help shop staff sell his line to the end customer, is still remembered today as best in class.
In 2006, after 30 years of kneeling in the snow to adjust bindings at demo days, mounting bindings and waxing skis, he retired from K2. Tom and Johnna relocated to Ormond Beach, FL, in 2008 for a little over a decade, where the highlight of any given month was watching rocket launches from Cape Canaveral. Eventually, they decided Florida wasn’t for them and set their sights on Greenfield Center, NY, just outside Saratoga Springs.
The years upstate were a mix of peacefully watching birds and other wildlife in their backyard, Viking Cruises in Western Europe and on the high seas, and trips to Dana-Farber following Tom’s soft tissue sarcoma diagnosis in 2023.
A celebration of Tom's life will be held on Sunday, September 13, 2026, from noon to 4:00 PM at the Adelphi Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York. Instead of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Tom's memory to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in gratitude for the care he received during his treatment for sarcoma and to support future research. Details on the celebration and a donation link can be found at tmbeach.com.
