Thomas M. Peitler

On Sunday, Oct 1st, marking the beginning of “Francis Week” at our parish, Mr. Thomas M. Peitler was awarded the HNP Francis Medal in recognition of his outstanding service to the Friars and selfless generosity of his time and talent to the parish community.

Mr. Peitler has been a life-long parishioner of St. Francis of Assisi, Triangle VA. Literally! He was baptized in the parish, attended the parish school, received all his sacraments here, and now, his children, the next generation of Peitlers is continuing the tradition.

Most parishioners know Tom as a cantor with his amazing tenor voice. He has served as a cantor since elementary school and is now a member of the Adult Choir. Tom’s skill is evidenced by the call to cantor and solo in some of the most difficult music throughout the liturgical year.

The Knights of Columbus know Tom as a member and the driving force behind their annual 4th of July fundraising. Parishioners in general know Tom as he has volunteered for a whole hosts the major school and parish events.

Some people know Tom as a “tech guy.” In fact, he is Chief Operating Officer of a technology company called ANALYGENCE in Fulton, MD. ANALYGENCE is an industry and technology leader in cybersecurity, and has been recognized by Inc 5000, Washington Technology, Great Places to Work, and may other organizations during his tenure. Tom also serves as the chief technology officer. He has brought those gifts to the parish in an impactful way.

When the pandemic arrived, Tom was the prime mover and animator of creating an initial streaming capability within the first week of the “COVID shutdown,” and subsequently transitioning the parish to a state-of-the-art live-streaming capability. Tom operated the live streaming system personally for every service, with the assistance of our Music Director and Assistant Music Director for over a year. He was responsible for design, installation, operation, and training additional volunteers for the system. At its peak, the system supported 3,000 simultaneous viewers. His efforts made it possible for the Friars to remain connected with the parishioners isolated at home.

Beginning in the summer of 2021, working with Fr. George Corrigan OFM, Tom effectively led the charge to bring the parish campus technology (parish and school) into the 21st century. A number of quotes were provided and priced the scope of work at more than $100,000. While the technical description of what has been accomplished over the last three years is impressive and detailed, it is perhaps best expressed in terms of its operating performance: zero downtime in the last two years with high-speed access anywhere on the campus. Information Technology went from a major problem to a service no one thinks about because it works….and it is saving the parish approximately $40,000/year in avoided costs – and was done with capital outlay of approximately $15,000.

Tom’s effort was not limited to design of the network and campus-wide WiFi. His work included rewiring the parish school with upgraded network cabling (with amazing moments of moving from “no way that will work” to “done!”). Tom has configured and implemented our campus IT infrastructure from backbone to desktop – now supporting parish staff, volunteers, and the entire school  community of staff, teachers, and students.

Tom’s design of the system is enterprise level quality and scalable should our needs grow, we are able to grow with it. A recent example of the scalability of the system came when a diocesan school security audit required the installation of a minimum of 6-10 new monitoring cameras. The existing system was not able to support the expansion. The current vendor proposed a $28,000 solution that required the parish/school to do all the wiring for the new cameras. They also required a $170/month maintenance fee. The scalability of Tom’s work allowed us to install a superior camera system, integrated into our network for $5,000 – and allowed us to expand the system to more than 30 cameras now offering security monitoring to every part of our campus.

Most of this work was done on evenings, weekends, and school holidays. His commitment is unparalleled.

This skill and experience also serves the Franciscan Province as Tom is a lay member of the IT Advisory Board.

Meanwhile, Tom continues to volunteer, serve as a cantor, and support the parish in any way – as he has done for almost 40 years.

It was with great pleasure we were able to acknowledge his commitment and gifts at the 9:30 am Sunday Mass (at which he cantored!)

“Well done my good and faithful servant” (Mt 25:21)