Tribute

Timothy C. Anderson

Founder & President, World Computer Exchange (WCE)

December 27, 1950 – July 12, 2022

Timothy Anderson, of Hull, Massachusetts, passed away July 12, 2022, age 71. Tim was born and raised in Hinsdale, Illinois to Paul Eugene Anderson and Mary Agnes (Donnell) Anderson, the fifth of seven children. He holds a BA from Boston College, earned an MPA at Harvard’s Kennedy School and remained in Massachusetts until his death.

Details of his Memorial – Sept 1, 2022 – down below

Tim worked on campaigns for Jimmy Carter and Sen Edward Kennedy, and served as consultant to the US Office of Education and National Endowment for the Humanities. He interned in the office of the House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill. He was Vice President for Boston’s two zoos. He was the New England VP of the National Alliance of Business until he founded Dovetail Consulting where he provided strategic planning for more than 300 non-profits and schools for 18 years.

Tim Anderson at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston

While running Dovetail, he served as President of The Boston Harbor Associates, co-founded the Boston GreenSpace Alliance and the Boston Management Consortium, and founded and managed the federally-funded Hull Environment & Services Corps.

Tim hung up his consulting shingle to found and run the South Shore Charter School, the pioneering K-12 school in Massachusetts for 5 years. He used his life’s work in public service, empathic communication, strategy, and seamlessly connecting all kinds of people together to found World Computer Exchange. WCE deploys a network of hundreds of grassroots groups and volunteers in 68 different countries to provide refurbished computers for schools while helping them plan, train staff, market, fundraise, recycle, and use the Internet for education.

In Tim’s “free time” he advised for: BluMail, eGranary Digital Library, Seavey Joyce, S.J. Community Service Award at Boston College, and AARP Massachusetts. He volunteered for: the Board of World Reuse, Repair and Recycling Association, the juries of the Stockholm Challenge, the UN ICT Task Force Working Group on Low Cost Access and Connectivity, the World Economic Forum’s Global Digital Divide Initiative Task Force, and 50 other organizations. In 2002, the President of the Republic of Georgia awarded him the Badge of Honour of Georgia. He is an honorary professor of the Tbilisi Orbeliani State Pedagogical University and an honorary citizen of Kutaisi, Georgia.

Tim making himself “at desk” no matter which country (or whose office) he was in.

Tim on his travels, oddly stifling a laugh.

A prodigious talent for frying eggs, and cooking leftovers, Tim also had an insatiable passion for long talks, long walks, and an ability to connect to an endless circle of friends and family with humor and empathy. He was a man on a mission to do good anywhere he could.

Tim is survived by his wife of 41 years, Pamela Cooney; his two children Kimball (Laurel Leake) and Jaren; surviving brothers Kyle (Colette), Dave (Bernadine), Phillip (James), and Tom, and one sister Elizabeth; and an endless array of nieces and nephews.