Thomas J Stewart

Stewart was the chairman and CEO of Services Group of America, a privately held food service corporation that he founded more than 20 years ago and that currently boasts 4,000 employees and annual sales of more than $2.5 billion. The company was based in the Delridge neighborhood of West Seattle for years until he moved both his business and personal residence to Arizona in 2006. He relocated to the Southwest, he said at the time, because of the Washington Legislature's decision to enact an inheritance tax that would have cost his estate millions had he been a Washington resident at the time of his death. The owner of Vashon's 525-acre Misty Isle Farm, which was put on the market for $125 million in 2007, Stewart was a stalwart Republican who held summer picnics at his expansive Island estate that drew GOP luminaries such as Newt Gingrich, Jack Kemp and Trent Lott. Stewart was an adventurous traveler who took a horseback trip with his family across the 2,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada and a jeep safari across Africa, according to a Services Group of America press release issued Monday. He was also an avid golfer, rancher, fisherman, skier and scuba diver. A self-made man with a larger-than-life personality, Stewart ran afoul of both Seattle and state campaign laws in 1996, when he was found to have illegally funneled $60,000 to promote a ballot measure to change Seattle's citywide council elections to district races. His reputation was further tarnished in 1998, when he was found guilty of violating federal election laws, laundering $100,000 in campaign contributions to GOP candidates through his company's employees. Most of that money was directed toward the congressional campaign of his friend and former Vashon neighbor, Pete Von Reichbauer, currently a King County councilman. Stewart was ordered to pay $5 million in fines and serve 60 days of house arrest for his crime, the third-largest penalty in U.S. history for a violation of that kind. But on Vashon, the sometimes controversial figure was also considered a generous man who supported a number of Island organizations and helped to shape the Vashon business scene. Stewart was the silent partner at the Back Bay Inn and other Island establishments. He also funded the enormous fireworks shows in Quartermaster Harbor for years before leaving the Island in 2006. And he donated $10,000 to the construction of the Ober Park playground and opened the equestrian trails on his expansive ranch to local horseback riders. Stewart was a faithful member of the Vashon Eagles club, said Eagles member Nici Dawber. He often donated Misty Isle Angus beef to the club's dinners, she said, and even after moving to Arizona, he visited the Eagles club every time he was on Vashon. "I didn't necessarily agree with his politics, but I think he meant well on Vashon; he certainly spent money on the Island, and we were all benefactors of his benevolence," she said. Stewart leaves behind an enormous estate that includes Misty Isle Farm on Vashon.