Alumni Association names Thompson honorary member

The name Robert Thompson might not immediately ring a bell with students. But as vice president of Administration and Finance, Thompson has conducted the work behind the scenes of much of the construction currently taking place on campus.

At the annual Gold and White Honors dinner held in March, the Alumni Association (AA) named him an honorary member along with Jean Fraser Duke and Aaron King, Jr.

“We try to honor people who have had a significant, distinctive [impact] on Georgia Tech,” said Joe Irwin, president of the AA.

“I was sort of flabbergasted when they called me up and said they were going to make me an honorary alum, because I know that [the award] doesn’t go to a lot of people....I’m incredibly honored and proud, actually, to have received the award,” Thompson said.

Thompson first came to Tech in 1995 with Institute President Wayne Clough, with whom he had worked at the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash. When offered the presidency at Tech, Clough asked Thompson to accompany him as vice president of Administration and Finance.

“Bob is one of the top people in his business, and he has been one of the chief factors in Georgia Tech’s rise to prominence as one of the nation’s top universities. What distinguishes him is his openness to new ideas, his broad knowledge of what it takes to succeed and his willingness to help others improve and grow,” Clough said.

During his first year at Tech, Thompson said, the campus was quite different from what it is today. Out of 73 universities that were surveyed, Tech ranked the lowest in appeal to students, faculty and alumni.

In the 11 years since Thompson has been here, the campus has doubled in size.

Under the State Board of Public Universities, Georgia universities are given an allowance of one building project for every six years. Because of these limitations, Thompson and many other members of the Administration and Finance Department worked to put together a private developer called Georgia Tech Facilities, Inc.

According to Thompson, the private developer was key to the expansion of Tech’s campus into areas such as Tech Square, the Campus Recreation Center and the Biomedical Engineering complex.

Thompson was also instrumental in creating a campus-planning commission of four well-known architects to select additional architects to build new facilities.

In addition to expanding and improving Tech’s campus appeal, Thompson restructured the administration, which was previously inefficient in serving the campus community. He reorganized it into six branches: Auxiliary Services, Facilities, Budget and Planning, Information Technology, Financial Services and Human Resources.

Thompson graduated from the University of Washington at Seattle with a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1962.

Thompson said everything he has accomplished at Tech would not have been possible without all the people working with him.

“When I retire and people ask me what I’m most proud of, I’m going to say that I’m most proud of the organization and the people that I brought to Georgia Tech,” he said.