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Robert St. Thomas Bio

Robert St. Thomas has had a meritorious lifetime record of honors, achievements, and service to his country. His career has spanned the country and the globe working on logistics, cost reduction strategies, finding “smarter” solutions to governmental and military management issues, and working on the sustainability and growth of cities and smaller communities.

Education

Starting with excellent achievements (he graduated 35rd out of 630) on the tennis and rifle teams in high school, Robert continued his success as he went on to attend the top-rated Rensselaer Polytech Institute (RPI)—one of the top engineering schools in the country. While there, he was served as president of his fraternity for 2 years. He not only graduated from the school with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1972, in 2004 he was also elected to the fraternity’s Order of Merit (for reorganizing a failing chapter)—an honor given in recognition of unusual, lengthy, and dedicated service.

Shortly after entering the Air Force in 1973, Robert began attending the University of Southern Illinois where he earned his MBA in 1978. Following some innovative achievements in the Air Force, Robert attended the National Defense University where he earned his Master of Science Degree in National Resource Strategy—knowledge that would be put to excellent use throughout his career.

Military Career

While Chief in the Operation Reports Branch at Travis Air Force Base in California from 1982-1985, Robert managed the daily performance of global airlift operations. This required outstanding organizational skills and continual communications. Using his extensive wealth of skills, Robert was able to develop and introduce new advances and techniques to help with analysis and information presentation. 

During this time, he also put his engineering knowledge to practical use by streamlining the efficiency of a strategic international flight route for military airlift aircraft flying over Singapore. That carefully redesigned flight plan was impressive enough to earn him official recognition in from then-President Jimmy Carter. A Letter of Appreciation was sent by Carter to thank him for his work on the new flight route which had saved the military upwards of $150,0000 in operating costs since it’s introduction in 1979.

As the Chief of the Operation Reports Division at Scott Air Force Base from 1985-1989, Robert St. Thomas managed top-secret computer systems that were used to organize the military’s response to global crisis situations. While assigned to the Weapons System Support Division from 1989-1990, Robert was tasked with supplying spare parts to over 1000 military transport aircraft worldwide. With an in-depth understanding of some of the issues and uncertainties being faced regarding the ability of certain parts of the fleet to fully accomplish wartime tasking procedures, Robert was able to formulate an innovative new solution for gathering the necessary data while at the same time saving the military $14 million.

As the Director of Logistics for Airlift Forces during Operation Desert Storm, Robert assisted with efforts to return more than 420,000 military personnel to the US through his assignment managing equipment and personnel necessary for the redeployment aircraft to operate on a continuous basis. This achievement was recognized when he was selected for the Lance P. Sijon Leadership Award in 1992, which was presented by the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Air Force.

Robert’s analytical and strategic adroitness along with logistical aptitude was exercised to great advantage during assignments with the Department of Defense.  Working on wholesale logistics strategies at the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), he not only introduced new corporate restructuring, cost reduction, and increased supply chain performance plans, he also taught classes on Defense Logistics Issues and Performance Measurement at the Air Force Institute of Technology each month for the 3 years he was assigned to DLA.  Another initiative had him developing strategies to reduce costs in procuring millions of items necessary to support military weapons systems. The cost reduction strategies were highly successful yet helped the military increase support for customers who relied on the Defense Logistics Agency. Between his assignments with the DoD, Robert, along with David K. Peterson, used that knowledge and experience gained to give a presentation entitled “Reappraising Logistics Performance Measurement Within the Defense Logistics Agency: Evolving to Meet New Realities.” at Ninth Annual Meeting of the Production and Operations Management Society Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

After his retirement from the DoD in 1998, Robert successfully completed a similar engagement for the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command while working with PriceWaterhouse Coopers.  This project saw him analyze their existing processes and create new processes using commercial analysis that decreased repair times, streamlined employee usage, and drastically decreased management costs. In 2000-2001 he was made Engagement Manager of a project for the US Department of State’s Office of Logistics Management where he again improved management infrastructure and costs.

Civilian Career

After retiring from the military in 1998, Robert turned his focus to projects that would apply advanced technologies in order to improve the operation of government, education and healthcare facilities, campuses, and municipalities while their reducing costs. While employed by IBM (which bought out Price Waterhouse in 1999), Robert was focused on Department of Defense cost reduction activities, particularly in supply chain functions.

In 2008, Robert shifted his focus toward working on IBM’s Smarter Plant/Smarter Cities initiative. With this initiative, Robert found successful solutions to market challenges within large cities and government facilities around the world, including not only the DoD but expanding to federal civilian agencies such as the Department of Energy, NASA, Veteran’s Affairs, and others. This work lead to producing data that would help modify corporate cultures to become conservation-driven rather than consumption-driven. 

In October of 2015, Robert turned his efforts to IBM’s Smarter Cities and Disaster Resilience initiatives. He worked on teams helping to apply UN, IBM, and AECOM-developed protocols that assist communities and large cities like New Orleans and Miami Beach to better prepare for, and recover from, natural disasters. During this time, Robert gave the Keynote Address entitled “The Role of a Global Development Exchange in Reducing Global Poverty” at the United Nation’s 16th Annual Information Poverty World Conference.

In January 2017 Robert founded GTG Services LLC.  As the owner of GTG, Mr. St Thomas focuses on the reduction of societal risks, injustice, and inequities by applying Smarter technologies and modern capacity building techniques to revitalize small communities, which helps mitigate unsustainable urbanization. He partners with small US communities like Seat Pleasant, MD and Small Island Developing States such as Solomon Islands to use Intelligent Operations Centers and Cognitive Apps to bring “big city services” to small municipalities, rural areas and islands to create more stable communities where local citizens can participate in-place with their local governments to compete successfully in global markets.  In April of 2017, he was able to address this issue and his initiatives to the United Nation’s 17^th Annual Information Poverty World Conference with a presentation titled “Big City Services from Small, Customized Platforms Enabling Rapid Economic Development”.  

As a result of his first year in business as GTG Services, Robert was honored by Seat Pleasant’s Mayor Eugene W. Grant at his State of the City Address on 29 January 2018 for assisting the City’s strategic transformation toward becoming a Smart City of Excellence.  Major initiatives included a city-wide hypertension reduction program, deployment of IBM’s Intelligent Operation Center, and a multi-stakeholder partnership with Oklahoma University, Harrisburg University, Prince Georges Community College, the National League of Cities and the African American Mayor’s Association to use Seat Pleasant as a living laboratory for demonstrating and expanding these Smarter City concepts across small town USA, and similar communities around the world.