When Chris Thomas graduated from Carroll College in 1984, the concept of networking personal computers (PCs) was new and the ideas of logging into the Internet and world wide web were virtually unknown. Interestingly, the ITU estimated that 3.9 billion people will be using the Internet by the end of 2018. Thomas’ career parallels this growth with each successive billion having different challenges including inventing technology, establishing infrastructure, standardizing ecosystems and engaging business and governments to realize the economic value of technology deployment.
Intel Corporation 1988-2014
Considered a visionary in the technology industry, Thomas worked for the Intel Corporation for more than 25 years as the company grew from $1 billion to over $50 billion in revenue. During his time at Intel, he became well known for driving industry standardization and next generation solutions. He pioneered new techniques for ecosystem and industry engagements that helped sustain Intel’s rapid growth and set the stage for his Industry Development business.
The 1st Billion – Connecting PCs to Networks
Thomas joined Intel Corporation in 1988, after working for a startup networking PCs to mainframes. At Intel, his focus was on networking and standardizing computers. In his positions, he developed products for early corporate intranets, founded the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF), influenced the Fast Ethernet Alliance and was the architect of core technologies behind the successful LANDesk Management Suite.
In 1996, Thomas was recognized with an Intel Achievement Award – Intel’s highest employee honor – for his role in positioning Intel as a leader in PC Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Manageability by driving industry-wide improvements in the setup and management of PCs.
The 2nd Billion – “eBusiness”
With most PCs now connecting to the world wide web, Thomas turned his focus to extending Intel’s relevance in enterprise business computing. He co-founded Intel’s Distributed Enterprise Architecture Lab to prove out and engage companies in the early deployment of eBusiness solutions and established an Industry Strategic Marketing team to encourage broad eBusiness solution adoption, leading to his tenure as Intel’s Chief Strategist for solutions and market development.
In 2004, Thomas was recognized with an additional Intel Achievement Award for establishing the Mobilized Software Initiative which engaged companies to retool their software in order to seamlessly work with WiFi hot spots prior to large scale roll outs of laptops with WiFi.
That same year, he also received recognition for leading an engagement with Charles Schwab where his team succeeded in optimizing some of Schwab’s problematic systems and prototyping clusters of Intel-based servers on Linux. This led to cost saving programs that migrated financial service industry data centers to Intel-based servers at Schwab, then NASDAQ and many others.
In 2005, he worked with Intel’s Israel Design Center to extrapolate how future software computing models might impact microprocessor architectures. The resulting predictive planning process helped design engineers incorporate the anticipated workloads into future microprocessor requirements.
The 3rd Billion – Bridging the “Digital Divide”
In 2007, Thomas joined Intel’s new World Ahead group, alongside VP John Davies, as the group’s Chief Strategist and Director of Architecture. In that role, he managed a worldwide team of solutions architects tasked with overcoming third-world problems like poor infrastructure and country-specific challenges in support of solutions for education, tele-centers, and healthcare. He also became active in World Economic Forum IT, cloud computing, Internet security and broadband activities.
In 2008, Thomas worked with NetHope and Catholic Relief Services to architect a digital cassava disease tracking and farmer training system that helped stave off financial crisis and food shortages for approximately 40 million people in six African countries.
In 2010, Thomas’ team partnered with the USTTI, a government-sponsored effort to train people from emerging countries. A resulting data center, created at Lake Victoria Fisheries, was the catalyst for the European Union funding 6 state-of-the-art fish processing facilities in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, improving the efficiency, sanitation and quality of Nile perch exports to Europe.
Taking an early retirement from Intel in 2014, Thomas co-founded The Stonington Group (TSG) with longtime college friend Rob Lampereur. At TSG, Thomas has focused on establishing groundbreaking Industry & Ecosystem Development frameworks. Drawing from his extensive worldwide career experiences, these frameworks are central to TSG’s unique consulting offerings and workshops that support companies and organizations as they expand their traditional strategic engagements to accelerate growth.
Distinguished Alumnus
Carroll University