Education
Thompson was accepted into the specialty college of James Madison College
at Michigan State University, where he earned a BA in Applied Economics
with a minor is Socioeconomics.
While a student at James Madison, Thompson worked numerus jobs to support
himself and pay for his education, including becoming the general manager
of a national wholesale company. As a student, he also founded his own
company which specialized in diamonds and precious stones. As his mother
could no longer work, he also helped to support her.
After receiving his degree from Michigan State, he became a vice
president for California Craftsman and then transitioned to the finance
industry at both Franchise Venture Partners and Shearson Lehman. Thompson
received the highest series 7 exam score for all Shearson brokers in his
class nationwide. At Shearson Lehman, Thompson specialized in equity
trading and the research of small-cap companies. In the course of that
work, he identified a local micro-cap company as being greatly
overvalued. Thompson invested his own money in that company, which in a
short period of time increased in value from $3.5 to $27. With the money
he made, he retired from finance and enrolled in law school. Thompson
received a perfect LSAT Score of 48 (170 on adjusted scale at that time).
Thompson married his law school sweetheart and for their honeymoon the
two of them conducted a five-count felony trial. The couple moved to
China to pursue business interests in the pearl river delta. Their
nascent project was destroyed by the Asian currency crisis which caused a
run on Hong Kong banks and the withdrawal of key investors in the
project. Years later another party picked up the project which was highly
successful.
