Langfitt, Thomas W.

Thomas William Langfitt was born in 1927 in Clarksburg, West Virginia and died in 2005 in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Langfitt had one older brother and one older sister. He was the son of Frank Valentine and Veda Davis Langfitt. Frank Langfitt was a surgeon and dairy operator, and was instrumental in establishing the "pop tax" on soft dirnks in 1951 that raised the funds to build the West Virginia University Hospital. Thomas Langfitt attended schools in Clarksburg. He took his A.B. at Princeton University in 1949 and his M.D. at Johns Hopkins University in 1953. He married Carolyn Louise Payne in 1953 and they had four sons. After an internship and residency at Johns Hopkins, in 1961 he was named chief of neurosurgery at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. In 1968 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania as chairman of the Neurosurgery Department, and in 1974 he was named vice-president for health affairs at the University. In 1980 Langfitt joined the board of directors of the Glenmede Trust Company and in 1987 he was named president and chief executive officer. He joined the board of directors of the Sun Oil Company in 1987. Langfitt was an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, a member of the Institute of Medicine (U.S.), and a member of the American Philosophical Society.