Michael Thompson
Chairman/President, Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy
Air Date, December 16, 2012

Michael Thompson is currently the Chairman and President of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, a non-partisan Virginia focused foundation dealing with the issues of improving education, government reform, economic development and environmental stewardship. This foundation is the state’s premier independent public policy foundation and has gained broad based respect from political and business leaders throughout Virginia.

Prior to working for the Thomas Jefferson Institute, Mr. Thompson was for 24 years the owner and president of the Thompson Creative Marketing Group, a nationally recognized marketing and public affairs company in Springfield, Virginia. He was also the president of the Mather Furniture Company, a family owned business in Georgia. He is the past Chairman of the Virginia Leadership Council, the state’s Board of Directors for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small business organization with over 6,000 members in our state, and remains on its Board of Directors. He served on the Attorney General’s Regulation Reform Commission in 2008-2009 as a member of the Infrastructure Task Force and on Governor-elect Bob McDonnell’s transition team on Government Reform. He is a member of the “Grow by Degrees” committee focused on higher education.

Mr. Thompson has been an active leader in the Virginia Republican Party and served in many leadership capacities at the state and local level. Thompson co-chaired the Bob McDonnell for Governor’s Government Reform Issues Committee during the campaign of 2009. He is active in his community and served three terms as President of the Springfield District Council, an organization representing over 200 homeowner associations.  He has served many years on the Executive Committee of the Fairfax Federation of Civic Associations (the umbrella organization for all homeowner associations in Fairfax County). He helped found and remains on the Board of Directors of the Occoquan Watershed Coalition in Fairfax County. He was the Governor’s appointee to the Small Business Assistance Compliance Advisory Board for the Department of Environmental Quality, served on the Board of Directors for several years of the Washington DC area chapter of the National Kidney Foundation, and has served on several Fairfax County commissions and task forces. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the internationally renowned Fund for American Studies working with college and university student leaders around the world to promote a market economy and free political systems.
Mr. Thompson has two grown children raised in Virginia and five grandchildren. He and his wife, Katherine, reside in Springfield, VA.