MassMEP Employee Highlights – Mike Thompson

Meet Mike Thompson, Senior Project Manager for MassMEP, who has been with MassMEP for 10 years. His job involves working with customers to help them grow. Mike gets excited about working with client employees, helping them to learn how to take on responsibility, and how to make mistakes and then fix them, and then watch them grow as employees and as a company. Mike says, “This is a fantastic job. Over my years at MEP I have accumulated a number of really, really good customers. One of the biggest challenges of my job is to get everyone in the company on the same page for growth goals. It’s not unusual for different levels of the company to have different ideas about that. But if we didn’t have challenges in life, what kind of fun would we have?”

Mike grew up working on cars because his dad owned a garage and because he was mechanically inclined. When he went to work he got started at a machine shop, Burgess Brothers, where he learned machining and CNC machines when they arrived on the scene. Then he got the chance to go on the road and sell, and that changed everything. With a warm smile, Mike reminisces, “I got to work with some of the greatest engineers that I’ve ever met in my life. I got to work on the Hubble telescope, units going into submarines, and got to see all types of medical equipment like blood machines. I was there when ISO first hit. When you’re in sales you meet a lot of people, and you also start learning more. So I took what I learned and started teaching other people. It came naturally to me, I was lucky. Then I worked for another company that made fittings and got to travel around the country. In that job, I got to teach companies about how the fittings work. That’s where all the teaching came in, and it has been part of what I do at MassMEP.”

Mike discovered MassMEP about 12 years ago when he was at a manufacturing show in Marlborough and met a gentleman from MEP, Rick Bowie. They got into a conversation and started talking about what Rick did. Mike liked what he heard and thought it sounded like it might be a good idea someday. Two years later he gave Rick a call, and the rest is history.

Mike’s positive attitude is clear to see as he shares, “Opportunity fires me up in my job – to sit with people and listen to them and at how they perceive things. I really enjoy helping them to change their issues and make it better. The challenge is to get people to understand nothing is forever, so we have to change. Change doesn’t have to be bad and isn’t necessarily bad. My great grandfather used to say there’s no sense in looking back because it’s already gone. Just keep looking forward. I’ve always believed that. And with everything that’s going on with COVID right now – we have to do that.”

Out of the office, the center of Mike’s happiness is his family. He is best buddies with his grandson. They do lots of things together like camping and fishing, and Mike gets a kick out of watching him grow. He also has 3 beautiful daughters and is blessed with a beautiful wife that he’s been married to for 45 years. Volunteer work rounds out his life. This includes giving time to the Elks, Board of Public Works, and town governance committees.

How well do you know Mike? Two of these statements are true and one is not. Can you guess which one?

1) My very first car was a 1963 Cadillac convertible.

2) At 18 years old, I owned my own gas station.

3) I am the Chairman of the Board for the Board of Public Works.