From Digging a Trench to National Defense: The Story of Tom Collins

The life of Tom Collins can be described as nothing less than a rollercoaster. From 24- hour bike races, to missile production, to multi-million dollar nonprofits, Tom has seen many sides of life, even the ugly ones. This is the story of Tom Collins, and his journey from drugs to discipleship.

Tom graduated from high school in 2002, and, in his own words, “My high school experience probably isn’t something you would want to put on the Pusch Ridge website.” Tom was known for partying and a variety of taboo acts during his time at Pusch Ridge Christian Academy. Due to his actions, Tom was often punished by the school. One his most notable punishments was having to dig trenches around the front of the school entirely by hand. This behavior quickly disappeared, however, halfway through his senior year. Tom was forced to attend a church camp by one of his friends, and on the first night he was saved, kickstarting his miraculous journey into who he is today.

For the remainder of his senior year, Tom spent time cleaning up his act and attempting to grow closer to God, attending a year-long discipleship program after graduation. The program was small, with seven to ten people, and it was here where Tom met and converted his future wife Bekah. Several years later, in 2006, Tom decided to go to college. Because of the housing market recession, Tom decided to pick a “recession proof job,” and went into accounting after receiving his bachelor’s degree in business finance and master’s degree in accounting science.

Tom bounced around jobs for a time, being a partner at an accounting firm and CFO of multiple multi-million dollar nonprofits to name a few. Today, Tom works as the manager of financial planning and analysis at Raytheon. When asked about his job, his response was, “I’m a number cruncher, my life is in Excel.”

While Tom’s transformation may be astounding, he has continued to grow further. Through much self-reflection, Tom found that he could use his addictive personality for good, and has since become an Arizona cycling champion. In fact, we could not do our original planned interview time because he had completed an entire 24-hour bike race the previous day. He has won several local bike races in Arizona, and has also competed nationally with Team Arizona multiple times. In the future, Tom plans to compete in a marathon, ultra-marathon, and do a cycling race across America, and in general “go out in the woods, get lost, and have fun.”

When asked what he was thankful for, Tom’s response was Dr. Abrams, for letting him “work off his punishments,” and letting him come back the year after he graduated to give his testimony. Tom was especially thankful that the people that were in the auditorium were people he had still gone to school with. He said, “they went to school with me, and they knew how bad I was, and I tried to kind of show them that if I could change, anyone could.” Tom’s transformation can be an example for all of us: if he could change, anyone can.

In this new chapter of his life, Tom has started a family, with a 13-year-old son, and two daughters aged 11 and 9. Tom’s oldest is about to start high school. To others starting high school Tom would say this, “although it may seem like it, high school is not the end-all be-all.” It’s fun, but it’s such a small portion of your life; enjoy it and don’t take it too seriously.” To those such as myself who are leaving high school, his advice would be this: find what you want and do it, the biggest thing is master what you enjoy. After that, everything will fall into place. To those reading this article, I encourage you to take his advice. Find what you love and never look back, just like Tom did.