Corporate Role: Founder & CEO, Space 6 Studios, LLC

Functional Role: Interim Program Manager, Coastal Communities Initiative, Development Partner

Business: Space 6 Studios, LLC

Thomas practiced as a Licensed Architect for over 24 years, over 20 years as a Program, Project, or Construction Manager, and over 20 years in private practice to comprise over 35 years of combined professional experience in the Washington DC Metropolitan area and abroad. Thomas worked on, managed or developed projects in coastal regions throughout the continental United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and abroad, including Japan, Korea, Guam, Portugal, St Lucia, Jamaica, Bahamas, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

He is a native Washingtonian who graduated early from high school to go on to obtain an associate degree in architectural engineering from the University of the District of Columbia, a five-year Professional Bachelor of Architecture Degree from Howard University. Thomas also came within six courses of obtaining a bachelor’s in construction management before turning his full attention to obtaining his architectural license.

Thomas has developed an infrastructure required for the ongoing operations of his proposed new and innovative initiative, known as the Coastal Communities Initiative. It will promote the sustainability of coastal region communities without significant reliance on forces outside of their control – public emergencies, disasters, and climate change preparedness. He is managing the overall implementation of the Coastal Communities Initiative.

Thomas’ overall development approach includes year-round Pop-up spaces to support the majority of his community-specific small and micro-business initiatives, year-round agricultural gardening and production, international cultural exchange, and easy-to-apply, sustainable technologies. He also intends to implement disaster-resistant design & construction initiatives. It will include the immediate practical application and the basic education/training of easy-to-apply disaster resistance, design/construction techniques, including the primary use of Geodesic Dome technology.

His current focus is the real estate development of Sustainable Urban Villages (SUVs)/Enclaves globally. With a keen focus on establishing meaningful collaborative partnerships to promote making our communities far more prepared for the increasing occurrence of natural and man-made disasters, environmental challenges, and the lack of robust, sustainable community education and training. Thomas is leading efforts to establish a prototype sustainable “Hub within the Village,” real estate development.

Thomas has developed collaborations that will support better knowledge and training in the practical application of easy-to-apply sustainable technologies within community-specific pockets of underserved/undeveloped or highly developed urban, rural, coastal, and adjacent communities - worldwide. He has developed and managed a strategic approach that is augmented by an international collaboration between universities, academic and research specialists, professionals, small and large business corporations, entrepreneurs, and local governmental, quasi-governmental, and international stakeholders.

Thomas’s approach is to fully integrate easy-to-apply sustainable technologies, and make them immediately available to localized at-risk coastal, underserved/undeveloped, or pockets of highly developed communities. This integration is designed for use before, during, and after public emergencies, disasters, and climate change events.

As a series of pre-development initiatives, Thomas have spent the previous eight years, inclusive of the pandemic working directly with community-specific small and micro-businesses in his own community of Ward 4, Brightwood section of the District of Columbia. He has completed the pre-development planning, analysis and community needs analysis phases in advance of the One Block International Marketplace (OBIM) Studio No. 3 development proposal.

He conducted extensive research and provided schematic site design concepts on six sites, referred to as Space 6 Studios, to analyze and align with our proposed business model for addressing community-specific needs in at-risk coastal and adjacent communities. Some of these sites are moving forward to become designated prototype Sustainable Urban Villages/(SUVs)/Enclaves. Please feel free to click on our link to "Sustainable Urban Villages.”

Special experience and expertise Thomas brings to the Coastal Communities Initiative as Interim Program Manager

Thomas worked five years on the U.S. Dept. of Labor (DOL), Job Corps Center Training Program Contract as an Architect and Project Manager. This is a nationwide Design and Construction Rehabilitation Contract tasked with design, and construction management of more than 110 nationwide Job Corps training campuses for youths in at-risk areas throughout the continental U.S., Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

As a project manager for the Design and Construction Group, he managed multiple sites simultaneously throughout the United States, out of more than 110 Job Corps Training Campuses. He was assigned one of the five largest Job Corps sites in the DOL/Job Corps Inventory during a highly active capital improvement period.

He also served a tenure as Deputy Assistant Director of Project Management for the Design and Construction Group. In addition, he was selected to serve on the DOL agency’s selection panel to determine the award of two to three new expansion state/cities to receive a new highly converted Job Corps facility.

Thomas also served as a full-time Adjunct Professor for the technical-professional-oriented evening programs in the two and five-year Architectural and Civil Engineering Program at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). In addition to his faculty position, he was selected to serve as an interim Deputy Director of the University’s Architectural Research Institute (ARI).

Prior to being promoted to Project Manager for the Construction Group, Thomas served a two-year tenure as Project Manager with the DOL Facility Assessment Group. He conducted site and building assessments for Job Corps Training Campuses throughout the continental US, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Each site typically consists of federal and local government-compliant training workshop facilities in electrical, HVAC, plumbing, carpentry, world of work, painting booths, etc. Each site also contained administrative, classroom, medical, onsite residential housing, and food service facilities.

As Project Executive and Program Manager, and eventually a tenure as Chairman of the Board of a prominent international 501c3 organization during work in Haiti for over 25 years, Thomas helped facilitate the recovery of sites supported through the nonprofit before and after the 2011 earthquake in Haiti. He provided pre-development site, building, and community development assessments, designed and facilitated the collaboration between the nonprofit organization and international and local community-based entities including forging collaborations with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

During his tenure, Thomas led efforts to the acquisition of an unsolicited contract with the United States Agency for International Development for which the team, and Thomas received an excellent performance rating as Program Manager. Reportedly, this was one of the first times this agency awarded this type of contract to a US-based, local, small, women-owned entity for work completed state-side.

He has developed and managed a strategic approach that was augmented by an international collaboration between universities, academic and research specialists, professionals, small and large business corporations, entrepreneurs, and local governmental and quasi-governmental stakeholders.

Thomas draws upon his experience in teaching, and training in the practical application of architectural engineering in a community college setting (i.e. UDC Architectural & Civil Engineering and ARI) and a technical training environment (i.e. Dept. of Labor, Job Corps Campuses). His current focus is global humanitarian/community-related real estate development of Sustainable Urban Villages (SUVs)/Enclaves. Thomas has six current proposals to develop this concept which he perfected during his humanitarian/community-related real estate development tenure in the Caribbean, coastal and urban environments. These development concepts are in an urban setting being applied state-side.

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