Gregory Thomas is the Executive Director of UMass Amherst’s Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship and a Lecturer in the Isenberg School of Management, but before he held those roles, you’d have found him on campus anyway.
A proud graduate with an impressive former career in accounting and manufacturing strategy at Corning, Thomas was a passionate volunteer at UMass Amherst before serving in a leadership role there. He started a program connecting Black and Brown PhD students from UMass Amherst to Black and Brown PhD and executives at Corning, has served as president of the Alumni Association, and helped the campus through a capital campaign as a member of its Fundraising Board. “One of the things I brought to this role is the ability to be a UMass guy, fully,” he said. “I’m basically stealing money–doing things I love to do that I get paid for doing. This is what we teach our students – do what you love, I just came into it late in the game.”
The Berthiaume Center brings entrepreneurship resources and education to the entire campus through its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Academy, Innovation Challenge, and Collegiate Summer Venture Program, as well as classes and other opportunities. The center is a catalytic organization for the campus and ecosystem, connecting resources, innovators and entrepreneurs.
They serve thousands of students and alumni every year. “They can also come to workshop ideas (ideation), get feedback, get advice on things like intellectual property, and we can help facilitate connections,” Thomas said. The center has helped connect student companies to accelerator programs and supply chain experts in the innovation ecosystem, helping student companies like MacFarlane Medical and rStream get off the ground.
Thomas thinks all students can benefit from the opportunity to explore entrepreneurship. “It allows them a different sense of autonomy, problem-solving, and decision-making,” he said. “Learning outside the classroom allows people to experience different aspects of life. Entrepreneurship grows critical thinking skills and grows people’s ability to be comfortable with ambiguity. An incredible thing happens when you explore your venture and then you keep going. The ones that don’t put those lessons on a shelf become superstars.”
As a Black man in a leadership position, Thomas says he sees plenty of microaggressions, often folks assuming he’s not qualified or shouldn’t be in his role. It impacts him to see so few Black students in his entrepreneurship classes–only a handful each semester. “Black kids need options for different support on campuses as large as this, and often they don’t get it. When they are in my class, I want to support them in the ways they need to be supported,” he said.
Thomas grew up in Springfield. “My whole life has been around folks who were entrepreneurs, or people making money in non-corporate environments,” he said. His grandfather had a business giving music lessons, and his mother’s husband owned and ran a barbershop; after he graduated from UMass Amherst, he earned an MBA in finance and decision science from Clark Atlanta University, a Historically Black University, before starting his career and making his way to Corning, a leader in glass and materials science for almost two centuries.
“Every job I had at Corning, I created, except the first one,” he said–a testament to the kind of innovation you can do inside an existing company. He eventually retired as manufacturing strategist for Corning’s Emerging Innovations group after several decades.
Now, he’s bringing Corning’s scientists, executives, and colleagues he’s met in the ecosystem to his classroom. The Corning scientists often bring up technology Thomas worked on directly, like the glass in their iPhones. “I had an impact by either directly scoping out the factory that made it or analyzing the process so we could scale,” he said. “It surprises them that I helped steer the invention process for a lot of stuff that touches their lives.”
What’s the most important thing he hopes his students take away from his classroom and the Center? “Remember, there is no new invention. All this ‘stuff’ has been thought of before,” he said. “The only thing that makes it successful is your ability to work hard (have the grit), interface, and understand both the business world and the world you’re bringing your innovation to; oh, and luck and timing.”
