Tom passed away on June 7th, 2026. He was born on July 22, 1936, to Floyd Crocker and Gloria Thomas in Bangor, Maine. He grew up in Bucksport, Maine, where his father was the woods boss for a paper mill located on the Penobscot River. During his teenage years he worked in the woods camps and learned to be a timber cruiser and run rivers in the log drives. After graduating from Bucksport High School and Central Maine Institute, he received a scholarship to Bowdoin College where he graduated with Honors in Economics.
After college he joined the U.S. Air Force. While serving in the Air Force in Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, he received a National Defense Education Act Fellowship to study for a Ph.D. in the new field of environmental and resource economics at the University of Missouri. While in graduate school he married fellow graduate student Sylvia Flemming. Following appointments at the University of Wisconsin and the University of California campuses at Berkeley and Riverside, Tom accepted a teaching and research appointment at the University of Wyoming. He arrived in Laramie in 1976 with his young family, another UC colleague and 12 graduate students.
Over the next several decades he played a central role in building the UW Department of Economics into an internationally recognized center for research and teaching in environmental and natural resource economics. During his tenure at UW, he served as Department Chair of Economics, was the founding Director of the Ruckelshaus Institute, and the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, taught hundreds of students and published more than 200 papers in scholarly journals. In a separate and more lengthy press release the University of Wyoming honored his legacy. In that tribute, Scott Beaulier, the Dean of the College of Business said “Few faculty members leave a legacy a profound as Tom Crocker’s. He was a pioneering scholar, a builder of institutions and a generous mentor whose influence can still be felt across the University of Wyoming. The College of Business is proud to have been home to a scholar whose ideas changed his discipline and whose character earned the admiration of colleagues and students alike. “
Acting Provost Anne Alexander, a former student, said “While his contributions to environmental economics were extraordinary, those who knew him best will remember his kindness, generosity and commitment to helping others succeed.” His good friend and colleague Jo Barbier, said “He was a big tree in the forest with deep roots and a large canopy that inspired so many.”
Tom loved his work and his life in both Wyoming and Maine. On September 9, 1989, in a snowstorm in his back yard in Sherman hills, he married fellow professor and love of his life Judy Powell. He loved running rivers, hiking mountains, working in the forests, the Boston Red Sox, classical music for working, country and folk music for playing, reading non-fiction, The Economist, and the New York Times, eating peanuts and ice cream, drinking beer, eating Judy’s cooking and spendings summers at his cottage in Maine.
Tom was predeceased by his parents and his former wife Sylvia Fleming Crocker. He is survived by his wife of 37 years Judy Powell, three daughters: Sarah Crocker Garcia, Trena Crocker Larson, Anne Marie Huntingon, and three grandchildren: Thomas Garcia, Samuel Huntington and Sophie Huntington. He is also survived by special friends Jay Shogren, Russ Scott, Ken and Polly Costello, and lifelong friend Leo Grunwald in Maine.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial donations be made to the Tom Crocker Memorial Fund at the University of Wyoming Foundation, 222 S. 22nd St., Laramie, Wyoming 82070. These funds will be used to support students and faculty research in environmental and resource economics.
To celebrate Tom’s life, all friends are invited to a party at the Trading Post in Centennial, WY at 5:00 pm on Saturday, September 19th. If you can attend, please bring a potluck dish to share and your dancing shoes!