Growing up as a champion weightlifter in the early 1960s, ThomasNadeau Segura told his father, an FBI agent, what he wanted to do for a living.
He got a swift response.
“His dad said, ‘No son of mine will be a PE teacher,’ ” Segura’s son, Thomas WestonSegura, told me the other day.
The father-son exchangewas an unforgettable conversation for Louisville, Kentucky, native Tom Segura, who matriculated at Xavier University, led a Marine platoon in Vietnam and in 1993 moved to Vero Beach as a wealth manager and vice president at Merrill Lynch.
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Segura, who died Dec. 29 at 74, left a legacy in Indian River County that will last generations. He played key roles in sustaining its growing hospital, now part ofCleveland Clinic, andbuilding a home for the county’s United Way. He servedother nonprofits, such as the VNA,too.
Goal-oriented leader
Segura was a “can-do” person — his daughter, Maria, said he loved setting and attaining goals —all too rare at a time whenvolunteer leadership might be more important than ever.
“He thought that people have an obligation to do things for their communities — especially people who have the ability to do so,” Segura's son said of the longtime Rotarian.
Segura didn’t just think, he acted — in many cases, boldly.
Segura and I spoke regularly about a variety of things — politics, the newspaper industry, health care and others. The best solutions, we often agreed, came down to people making decisions based on data and in the best interests of folks they served. It was about leadership, communication and character.
Nowhere was that more evident than in his service of what’s now known as Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital.
John Moore, a Vero Beach native, philanthropist and former trustee of the Indian River County Hospital District, said he and Segura hit it off after meeting as neighbors.
“His keen insights about people and problems helped to advance the work of the most important institution in our county,” Moore said. “Tom was one of the vanguard of people who arrived here in the early ’90s, jumped in and accelerated our community’s ability to deliver critical social services.”
From 1999 to 2006 it was at the United Way, where Segura worked with Moore and chaired an effort to build the United Way Center. Segura and his wife, Charo, also chaired the annual fundraising campaign.
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An estimated 1,000 meetings
Meantime, Segura was elected in 2000 to the hospital district. Almost three years laterhejoined the nonprofit Indian River Medical Center board, which operated the district-owned hospital. He served 10 years, including eight years as treasurer or chairman, and attended an estimated 1,000 related meetings.
Much of that time was spent working with Jeff Susi, the hospital’s president and CEO 1998-2017, who helped its foundation raise $150 million to fund additional services and improvements.
“Tom was all about our community,” Susi said, noting Segura was proud of the directors, “a community leadership group of people living in the community making local decisions for the people in Indian River County.
“Tom loved facts. … Armed with facts, he was always a great advocate for whatever cause he was supporting.”
Some of those causes: partnership with Duke health, new emergency room, heart and cancer centers, operating rooms, physician workplaces. The efforts paid off in 2019 when the hospital was taken over by Cleveland Clinic.
Susi said Segura helped persuade the Florida Legislature to change a law that allowed hospitals such as Indian River to have heart centers. The impassioned plea came after one of Segura's friends died while in a helicopter en route to open-heart surgery in Orlando.
While the public hospital often was blamed for a lack of transparency, Segura opened hospital books to Press Journal reporter James Kirley.
“He was very patient in explaining the Byzantine rules of public hospital finance to me,” said Kirley, who retired in 2013. “He was a good and sincere guy.”
Jeff Petersen is Segura’s son-in-law, hisformer business partner, and active in local philanthropy.
“Tom never let any excuse get in the way of his dedication to serve, and his selfless drive represents a modern-day Marcus Aurelius — stoic, quietly powerful, and responsible for improving everything to which he dedicated his time,” Petersen wrote in an email.
In my last conversation with Segura around Thanksgiving, he said he was feeling well. As he often did, he praised the treatment for multiple myeloma he'd received the past three years at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and Cleveland Clinic locally. He also lauded several health care experts, including former hospital CEOs, he served with on local boards over the years.
Big Dog brought out humor
While Segura occasionally told me a joke, he usually was all business: straight-laced, direct and persuasive — like when he wouldn’t take no for an answer when recruiting me years ago to join the United Way board. It turned out to be a learning experience.
His son, 42, called Tommy by family and friends, said his dad’s matter-of-factness could be “intimidating.” It wasn’t reality at home.
“He was such a teddy bear,” Tommy said, noting his father was affectionate andnever yelled. “He was just a sweet-loving guy.”
He had a sense of humor, too; like when he called Tommy, then a 245-pound high school senior, “Big Dog.” In college, Tommy’s roommates asked Mr. Segura what he called himself. “Top Dog” was the quick response.
That wasabout the time Tommy told his dad he wanted to move to Hollywood and work in comedy. Top Dog told his son about his FBI-grandfather’s “PE teacher” comment.
Then he said:
“ 'I think you should do it,’ ” Tommy recalled. “ ’You’ve got to be ready if it doesn’t work out.’ He couldn’t have been more supportive.”
So supportive Segura paid his son’s rent in California the first year, and congratulated Big Dog when he earned his first $50 for a standup gig.
“He acted like that was a huge deal, too,” Tommy said. “He was just super proud.”
So proud he’d sit in the front row of his son’s sold-out comedy shows. And so proud he appeared on his son’s and daughter-in-law’s popular podcast, gathering a following as the comedian’s “Top Dog.”
“He was convinced he was hilarious,” the comedian said of his father, adding he loved telling jokes and laughing, but often stumbled through the punchlines. “We’d laugh at him butchering jokes. … When he heard a joke he liked he’d howl.”
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That's maybe not what you’d expect from an often stoic community and Marine platoon leader exposed to Agent Orange.
“He was incredibly calm and able to handle high-pressure situations,” Tommy said. The commentreminded me of the stand-up routine when he chatted about anear-death drug overdose as a teenager, waking up, unable to talk, seeing his parents and writing them a question on paper asking whetherthey were madat him.
“No, buddy, just disappointed,” Tommy said, quoting his dad.
Moore told me family and Catholic faith were paramount to Thomas Nadeau Segura.
“His unswerving faith was easily seen by all; his core beliefs were captured in a phrase he loved: ‘We are all just here getting ready for the final exam,’ ” Moore said in an email. “I’m pretty sure he passed with flying colors.”
This column reflects the opinion of Laurence Reisman. Contact him via email at larry.reisman@tcpalm.com, phone at 772-978-2223, Facebook.com/larryreisman or Twitter @LaurenceReisman
