Bio

Mr. Thomas has over 28 years of experience practicing nearly every facet of commercial real estate and general corporate law, in both the large law firm and corporate settings. During his twelve years in the Legal Department of Costco Wholesale Corporation ending in 2012, Mr. Thomas orchestrated the acquisition, disposition, leasing, development, financing, construction and management of complex retail, office, industrial and warehouse real estate transactions throughout the continental United States. For ten years prior to his tenure at Costco, Mr. Thomas served as Senior Counsel for Meijer, Inc., where, in addition to his lead role in the company’s site acquisition process, Mr. Thomas served as the primary legal counsel supporting Meijer’s Finance Department, working on private placement financing, merchant banking agreements, software licensing and technology transfer contracts, and other finance and general corporate agreements. Beyond his development of a solid knowledge base in real estate and general corporate law and finely-honed skills in legal analysis, drafting, negotiation and communication, Mr. Thomas’ work experience during his 22 years as corporate counsel have given him the keen ability to balance his clients’ business objectives with their transactional and enterprise risk tolerances in structuring and negotiating business transactions, and he is highly adept at working within their organizational structure and corporate culture. He has been routinely lauded by his colleagues as a “businessman’s attorney” who can not only identify the important issues but also craft and champion innovative and practical solutions that remove obstacles and bring all involved parties to “yes!” In more recent years, Mr. Thomas has extended his practice to include serving as outside general counsel for start-up companies and other nascent ventures, drawing upon his extensive business experience and broad network of professionals to “quarterback” the legal function at these enterprises as they seek to navigate organizational matters, tiers of private financing, intellectual property rights and other issues common to emerging companies. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Thomas practiced as a certified public accountant at Touche Ross (now, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited).