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NORWALK, Conn. -- Oliver Thomas Hayes III (Tom) died at his home in Norwalk on Dec. 10. He was 73 years old.
He was the son of Ruth Turner Hayes and O.T. Hayes, Jr., grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C. and graduated from R.J. Reynolds High School.
He received a metallurgical engineering degree from North Carolina State University, where he was a member of Sig Phi Epsilon fraternity.
He completed Officer Candidate School to become an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving three tours of duty on a destroyer in the Vietnam War.
He received a master's degree from the Wharton Business School and worked for J Walter Thompson, where he met Jeanne Maraz, his wife and friend for 41 years.
After becoming senior vice president at William Esty Advertising and Wells Rich Greene, he was executive vice president and managing partner at the New England Consulting Group in Westport, where he authored two books on marketing and advertising. He also originated the Oreo campaign “The kid in all of us.”
He wrote many travel articles and was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first man to have skied all seven continents. He smuggled his skis into Antarctica, pretending to be on a scientific expedition.
He is survived by his wife Jeanne Maraz, residing at Maplewood at Strawberry Hill in Norwalk; two sons Oliver Thomas Hayes IV with Natalie Julianno in West Palm Beach, Fla. and Timothy Turner Hayes in Boston, Mass.; his brother Stephen T. Hayes from Washington, DC and brother-in-law John Maraz in Baldwin, N.Y. He is also survived by his grandson Oliver Thomas Hayes, V.
He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in the Spring.
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