MarKeicha Dickens
JOUR 271
September 18, 2012
Thomas Visit
438 Words

UM Alum Drops Knowledge on Underclassmen

     UNIVERSITY, Miss. -- Farley Room 233 was silent but alert as Ole Miss Alumni and Vice President of Internal Affairs at Abbott Laboratories John B. Thomas stepped in. Thomas started off with a lengthy PowerPoint for the sophomores in Jour 271, extensively describing where he came from and how he got to where he is today.

     Hailing from the Chicago area, Thomas decided he wanted to become a Rebel after just one visit. His father, his biggest inspiration, was the one who sparked his interest in communications. He finished at the top of his 1985 Journalism class having been one of the twelve students enrolled in Samir Husni's very first magazine class. Thomas worked at The Daily Mississippian while here at Ole Miss. Many professors admired his discipline as he wrote an article every week about flag football games that took place on campus. On a budget of only $500, he and a friend started The Oxford Times literally one day after they received their degrees. Thomas said of this experience, "It was fun, but I wouldn't recommend it."

     Thomas's plans of attending grad school at Ole Miss came to a halt when he received his very first job opportunity in New York, NY. He described his time at Metropolitan Home, Meredith Corporation public as traumatic. The best advice he gave to this young class was to get experienced. Thomas could not stress enough the importance of building your resume. He suggested the aspiring journalists take advantage of every single opportunity that comes along; because they don't come along often.

     Grad school did indeed come for John Thomas, however, but not exactly when he expected it. Thomas was married with a couple of little children running around the house when he received his MBA at Lake Forest. He agreed to go back to school to take over the Investor Relations part of Abbott simply because no one else wanted to do it. Abbott Laboratories is a health care Fortune 500 company that is nearly 125 years old. It will soon split into another company called AbbVie, where Thomas will take his professional skills. Abbott brings in about $17.4 billion in sales.

     Between dealing with impatient CEO's, crisis management, the ever-changing stock market, and needing "more cowbell" students were dying to know how Thomas stayed sane. After chuckling a bit at a seemingly hard question, he gave many different answers. Exercise, stay positive, but most importantly, "Do the best you can because you can't do anything more than that," he said.

 QUESTIONS

How do you deal with stress?