would really like the state
machine to be a member of an Objective C class.

This might work if you reference the state machine via pointer data member.

My code in the .mm file looks something like (with the FSM in a different .h file):

@interface delegateThingy {
    Machine * stateMachine;
} 
@end

@implementation delegateThingy

- (void)init {
...
    stateMachine = new Machine();
    stateMachine->initiate();
...
}

@end

It fails to instantiate on the initiate call.  I vaguely remember something about forcing an entire template to be instantiated in a translation unit.  I guess I'll look it up in my reference manuals and see if that will help fix this problem.

I appreciate the help.