Louis Nelson Tomlinson

Louis Nelson Tomlinson (July 10, 1940 - November 19, 2009) RESTON, Virginia - Louis Nelson Tomlinson, age 69 of Reston, Virginia, passed away in Fairfax, Virginia, on Thursday evening, November 19, 2009, with family by his side.

Lou was born in San Francisco, California, to the late James Henry Tomlinson of Lompoc, CA, and Mary Elfreda Nelson of Mantua, UT. He graduated from Sir Francis Drake High School in Marin County in 1958. In 1962, he received a B.S. in Marketing from the University of San Francisco and began working for Chevron in San Francisco. From 1960 to 1966, Lou served in the United States Air Force Reserves, and was called up into active duty during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

In 1965 he married Holly Rae Thorstad of Vale, Oregon, in the Oakland Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Their daughter Christina Louise was born in 1969 while Lou and Holly were pursuing graduate study at Brigham Young University, from which he received an M.S. in Statistics in 1970.

Lou and Holly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area where Lou continued to work for Chevron until 1972, when he went to work for Mars Ltd., in Slough, U.K., as a commodities analyst researching the cocoa futures market. In 1974 he was transferred to Mars corporate headquarters in McLean, VA. Lou left Mars in 1981 and went to work as a systems analyst for Marriott International in Bethesda, MD. He had the first personal computer at Marriott headquarters, and in 1995 was awarded the prestigious J. Willard Marriott Award of Excellence, given annually to ten employees worldwide who embody the company''s ideals of service. Lou retired from Marriott in 2001.

Lou is survived by his loving wife Holly, a retired employee of the U.S. Department of the Interior; his daughter, Christina, a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State, currently residing in Istanbul, Turkey; and his sister, Judith Ann Tomlinson Trager, a renowned textile artist living in Boulder, CO.

Lou was a lifelong active member of the LDS Church and served as a volunteer at the Washington, D.C. LDS Temple in Kensington, MD, until 2009. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1984, for the last 20 years Lou was a research patient at the National Institutes of Health Neuroimmunology Branch, donating cells to assist NIH in the understanding and treatment of MS. He was a frequent visitor to the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and an avid photographer who took courses in botanical photography at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., and loved photographing his wife Holly''s orchid collection. Lou and Holly enjoyed travelling and visited Christina in each of her overseas assignments in China, Hungary and Turkey.

The family will receive friends from 9:30-10:30 a.m. Saturday, December 5, at the Reston chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1515 Poplar Grove Dr., Reston, VA. Funeral services will begin at 11:00 a.m. at the church.

On December 11, the family will meet friends at Lindquist''s North Ogden Mortuary, 2140 North Washington Blvd., from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m., with services beginning at 11 a.m. Interment at 12 noon at Ben Lomond Cemetery, 526 East 2850 North, North Ogden, UT.

Expressions of sympathy may take the form of flowers sent to Lindquist''s North Ogden Mortuary on Thursday, December 10, or via contributions to the LDS Humanitarian Services Wheelchair Distribution Fund at http://give.lds.org/wheelchair. Send condolences to the family at: www.lindquistmortuary.com