1980 UIUC graduate Tom Cycyota is President and CEO of AlloSource, located in Centennial.  The company is one of the nation’s largest non-profit providers of skin, bone and soft tissue allografts – medical implants and devices constructed from human cadaveric tissue for use in surgical procedures. Allograft tissue comes from a deceased donor who has consented to donation in order to help someone in need.

Approximately 1,500,000 allografts are transplanted each year for a variety of life-saving and life-enhancing surgeries, Cycyota said.  They include bone grafts for patients whose bones have degenerated from cancer, cornea transplants to help restore sight, heart valves to replace damaged heart tissue, skin grafts to save the lives of burn victims, and tendon, meniscus and soft tissue replacements to help people lead more active lives.

Tom has led AlloSource since 2000 years through a mission-driven approach to doing business. Honoring the gift of human organ and tissue donation, AlloSource responsibly processes and distributes life-saving and life-enhancing human allograft tissue for our communities.  Every business decision at AlloSource is held up against that mission, he explains, including every new hire, customer acquisition or partnership. Tom credits the mission statement in part for the company’s success, because it serves as a steady beacon to ensure that AlloSource is doing the right things to help patients, medical professionals and donor families. Both Tom and AlloSource have been celebrated by professional awards in the Colorado and biotechnology communities.

Tom is a 1980 graduate of UIUC’s College of LAS, where he studied biology.  He recalls his most enduring experiences taking place not in the classroom but through his involvement in many U of I student organizations – including Delta Sigma Phi fraternity, on whose national board is currently serves. This experience cumulated in being selected to organize the 1979 Homecoming activities where he fondly remembers being on the football field at Memorial Stadium during halftime of the game. 

The community involvement nurtured at U of I continues today.  Tom is President and Chairman of the Board of The Donor Awareness Council, is a Board Member of National Donate for Life America, and is active in the Boy Scouts.

“The University of Illinois is immediately recognized as a world-class university,” he said.  “I am thankful for the memories and networks I’ve been fortunate to create through my affiliation with the school.” 

Living like true Coloradans now, Tom and his wife Cyndy and their three sons – Hank, 20, Tim,19, and TJ, 18 – enjoy hiking and camping in the Colorado backcountry. 

Read more about Tom in an article from the Winter 2010 Alumni Magazine.