Tom Coffin, activist and former head Atlanta arborist, dies at 82

Whether operating a construction crane, helping to write Atlanta’s first tree law, photographing the Okefenokee Swamp or working for an underground newspaper, Tom Coffin was good at everything he did. Throughout his life, he pivoted from one career to another seamlessly.

“He grew up in the anti-war movement, and he remained an activist for the rest of his life,” said Sue Thrasher, who knew Tom and his wife, Stephanie Coffin, for decades. “He got out there and acted on what he believed. He had a boatload of integrity.”

Thomas Alan Coffin died of a heart attack Nov. 6, 2025, at age 82. Born to Arthur and Ellen Coffin in Dearborn, Michigan, Tom grew up in Soap Lake, Washington, with his parents and his two brothers. His family had moved there for his father’s construction work. After finishing high school, Tom spent two years at Washington State in Pullman, studying chemistry before transferring to Reed College in Portland and graduating with an English degree.

At a party in Portland he met Stephanie, who had grown up in Seattle. When he left for Atlanta for graduate school at Emory in 1967, she went along. They married en route, in eastern Idaho, Stephanie said, “because there was no waiting period in Idaho before you could marry.”

Soon, his involvement in the anti-war movement became more important than the study of literature, and he left Emory. With other activists, the couple started a co-op and in 1968 founded “The Great Speckled Bird,” Atlanta’s first underground newspaper, with Tom as editor.

She describes it as “a nonhierarchical organization.” The newspaper covered women’s liberation, Atlanta politics, the environmental movement, LGBTQ issues, the anti-war movement, Black power, and culture. It went from biweekly to weekly, with a circulation of 30,000 throughout the Southeast.

In 1972, the newspaper’s offices were firebombed, but it continued publishing until 1976, and then returned for two years in the mid-1980s.

From 1976 until 1989, Tom Coffin worked in construction in Atlanta as a soil and concrete tester and then as a crane operator, belonging to Operating Engineers Local 926.

In the early 1990s, he returned to academia, enrolling at the Warnell School of Forestry at the University of Georgia and earning a doctorate in forestry in 1995. He learned to climb trees, and he traveled around the country teaching others to climb.

With his Ph.D. in hand, Tom taught sociology at Georgia State as an adjunct professor until he was fired for trying to organize an adjunct union. He then became the head arborist for the city of Atlanta, a position he held for eight years. He was terminated in 2008 after complaining to his supervisors that other arborists weren’t enforcing the city’s tree ordinance. He filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the city, which was settled in 2011, the day before it went to trial.

In addition to his other skills, Tom Coffin was a wonderful photographer, taking pictures of people working, of Atlanta, his family and nature.

He and Stephanie — along with their children — visited the Okefenokee Swamp for years. He had a fundraiser for the Georgia River Network in 2023, displaying and selling photographs of the swamp. He also helped organize the first chapter of the Georgia Arborist Association and the International Society of Aboriculture.