Thomas "Jack" Jackson Reed was born to Fred Edward Reed and Grace Neill Reed in Springdale, Arkansas on June 1, 1917 and was the second eldest of eight brothers and sisters.  Mr. Reed graduated from Springdale High School in 1935, and he earned a B.S.A in Agricultural Economics in 1939 at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where his major areas of study were Rural Economics and Sociology, Agronomy, Animal Industry, and Horticulture. Mr. Reed continued his education at the USDA Graduate School in 1940, and he later earned his Masters of Science in Economics and Statistics at Iowa State University in 1947. Thomas Jackson Reed married Rebecca Daniel of Arlington Virginia in July 1940, but they later divorced in December of 1944.  Mr. Reed married Joy (Kiser) Gardner of Worthington, Minnesota in June of 1945.  They had six children together: Rebecca, Anne, Douglas, twins Linda and Deborah, and Susan. Thomas Jackson Reed spent the majority of his early career in government work.  He worked for the Bureau of the Census in Washington D.C., the Commodity Credit Corporation USDA, the Department of Agriculture, and the Renegotiation Board.  Mr. Reed began his career as a Junior Soil Conservationist and Agricultural Statistician and later became an Assistant Agriculturalist. From 1940-1952, he held various government positions as an economist and statistician which included positions with the Bureau of the Census, the Commodity Credit Corporation and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, which were under the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  From 1952 until 1954, Mr. Reed was employed by the Federal Government as a Statistician Director in the Division of Statistics of the Renegotiation Board.  Mr. Reed also worked as an Assistant Chief Statistician and director of the Editing and Coding for the marketing research company, National Analysts. Mr. Reed began his career at the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary in 1957, which would later become Old Dominion University.  Mr. Reed was an Associate Professor in the School of Business Administration where he taught courses in Economics, Business, and Statistics.  Mr. Reed retired from Old Dominion University in July of 1982. Mr. Reed also participated in a significant amount of private work while teaching at Old Dominion University.  He appeared as an expert witness in numerous court cases and before regulatory agencies, he provided direct consultation to private businesses and organizations, and he conducted many research projects.  Mr. Reed took on an influential role in Hampton Road’s Navy Housing Study, was an expert witness in the Supreme Court cases concerning senate and house redistricting in the early 1970s, and he consulted with many small businesses in Hampton Roads.  Thomas Jackson Reed was also a founding member of the development organization SEARCH, which first met in November of 1962.  In the beginning, the group was simply referred to as “Persons Working with Social and Economic Statistics in the Hampton Roads Area” and in 1963 the group was formally organized as the Social Economic Area Research Clearing House, or SEARCH.  The organization consisted of people with a like-minded interest in of the economic, social, and physical progress of Hampton Roads, focusing on the metropolitan areas.  The group aimed to promote a more wide spread and fluid exchange of ideas and did so until its end in 1990. Reed died at his home in Richmond, Va., December 13, 2010.

Note written by Heather Hammond