About Me

Thomas is an award-winning educator and consultant who has served more than 2,000
small businesses and assisted in 600 startups since 1986. He is a small business
management (SBM) instructor at Clackamas Community College, Oregon, and an associate
faculty member teaching in the MBA program at Marylhurst University (Oregon). In 2007,
Thomas co-founded the Ridgefield Institute (Washington) whose mission statement begins:

We are an assembly of talent organized to advance positive change. We are present-minded,
future-oriented, and deeply-rooted in education initiatives presented to diverse fields.

Thomas is a past recipient of the Leavey Award recognizing his innovative education work in
service to the small business community. Too, he created the Greenhouse Program
recognized by the United States Association For Small Business and Entrepreneurship as a
model, best in class, program. Thomas also received the star-instructor award from
Portland General Electric’s (PGE) Corporate University for his work with the Oregon Utility
through Clackamas College and Eastern Oregon University.

He is an active futurist researcher who has lectured since 1991 in the areas of futurism,
technology, and society. In 1999, he was honored to keynote the annual Mark. O. Hatfield
Institute on the topic, The Future of Government. His current “Frame the Future” series
illuminates the fields of small business, healthcare, public power, and education and their
likely development.

Thomas has also created a simple and dynamic planning model and process that replaces
cumbersome strategic planning methods. Over the past 15 years he has assisted hundreds
of organizations to engage in positive change mechanisms that result in creating the future
rather than just anticipating it.

His other major initiative has been in the area of turnaround leadership. Beginning in the early
1990’s he has assisted in more than six turnarounds annually to transform ailing
organizations into vibrant enterprises.

But Thomas’ first and truest professional love is small business. The aim of
smallbusinesswisdom.com and the Ridgefield Institute is to expand the scope of his
successful work at the Clackamas Community College Small Business Development Center
(SBDC). Each fall, Thomas begins a 10 month journey with 40 small businesses that often
results in transformational change and breathtaking success for the business owners. What
Thomas has achieved with small business owners through Clackamas College can be
achieved on the national stage through web-based education and publications mechanisms.

Small business is a vital cog in the economic engine of the United States economy and a
vibrant source of innovation. But it is much more than that. For millions of Americans, their
small business feeds the soul, energizes the intellect, and pays the rent. But even beyond
those satisfying elements, small business provides a canvas for self-expression and a
harbor of humanity in an increasingly automated and impersonal world.