Tom Thatcher

Background

About Tom Thatcher

My goal, and greatest joy, is to help other people succeed. There’s no category for this on LinkedIn, but I consider myself a “success engineer”: we’ll clarify where you want to go and what you want to do, and then I’ll help you build a strategy and secure the resources to get there. If I can’t get you there we’ll find other people who can. I don’t like transactional relationships and therefore don’t have any. I only work with friends, and only as a partner, and I’ll only partner with you if I can embrace your mission as my own. If this seems vague or too much like a resume pitch, I’ll be glad to refer you to people I’ve worked with and they can tell you what I do and how I roll. In fulfillment of my calling to engineer other people’s success, for the past three decades I’ve focused on creating and delivering transformational experiences in a variety of venues and modalities. Through for-credit graduate and college courses (I was a Professor for 28 years and a higher ed administrator for 8), public presentations for churches and other organizations, online environments, books and other published materials (I’ve written or edited 19 books and dozens of articles and peer-reviewed papers), group consulting, and one-on-one coaching, I learn people’s and organization’s stories and understand their goals, then help them focus their vision, gain confidence, make plans, and take the first critical step. My primary gifts include vision clarification, research, strategy, business planning, writing (academic, technical, and trade), teaching, public speaking, and gamification (if you’re not sure what that is, let’s talk—super cool stuff). I specialize in strategic planning, program design, curriculum development, business plans, and grant writing—anything that involves the translation of complex concepts into comprehensible terms. As a design theorist, I develop solutions through collaboration and multiple cycles of review and improvement. In my view, inclusion and diversity are not abstract values but vital assets. I love hanging out with people who walk on the far horizons and will push you to make the ideal become real. Why not? It can be done.