Richard Thompson
Interview by R. Randall Padfield - February 1, 2009
Richard Thompson is an enthusiastic self-proclaimed entrepreneur. “I’ve never had a job my whole life that I didn’t create,” he told me as we talked in his finely refurbished Hawker 700A on the Jet Aviation ramp at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport.
Thompson left El Paso [Texas] Community College after two years in the early 1970s seeking adventure. “I went to Belize for seven years when it was still British Honduras,” he said. “I owned 100 acres on Caye Caulker.”
He has also been in the oil and gas business in North Dakota, founded the American Italian Pasta Company (“the largest pasta company in North America”) and bought and sold Meow Mix, earning himself a tidy sum. He’s now the CEO of GO7Brands (pronounced “gee-oh-seven”), a consulting and financing firm that assists packaged-goods-focused companies; and the founder and largest shareholder of Zootoo.com, a Web site that he hopes will become as indispensable for pet lovers as Google is for Web searches.
As Thompson demonstrates, entrepreneurs tend to approach management a bit differently than the classic corporate CEO. He’s also an unabashed proponent of business aviation. Here’s his story.
How did you get involved in aviation?
I worked at the local airport while I was in high school. The instructor said, “If you’re going to fly airplanes, you’re going to learn why they fly. You’ll be a better pilot if you know how everything works on a plane.” That summer we rebuilt a J-3 Cub and made one Aero Commander 500 out of two wrecked ones. Then he started to teach me how to fly. I got my pilot’s license in June 1967.
You said you’ve had several piston airplanes, but you stopped flying. What happened?
When I was 32 I met Kristen, my future wife, in a Republic Airlines boarding line at Minneapolis Airport. I got her upgraded to sit in first class next to me. Three months later we were married. On one of our first dates, I flew her in my [Cessna] P210 from Denver to Santa Fe to meet my mom. But within a year after we got married, Kristen said, “You’re hanging out at the hangar too much. When you get something with a stand-up bathroom, I’ll fly with you again.” She helped me get rid of the 210. Six years ago, I bought this airplane.
Why did you buy a Hawker 700, a model that has been out of production since 1984?
Because there’s a big price difference between it and the Hawker 800. So I thought, being a pilot and understanding how planes work, we could take it apart and rebuild it, which we did. The capital that I didn’t spend on an 800 I have for my business, and I have an airplane that is just as good. I can still get from point A to B in comfort.
Doesn’t it bother you to fly in a 27-year-old airplane?
No. It’s very reliable. Will I someday trade up to an 800? Probably. I’m waiting for the market to dictate when I do that. We’ve put bids out on a few.
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