Turning ideas into products that sell

May 11 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

He's survived a coma and a brain tumour, broken more bones than you can count and reckons that less than four hours' sleep a night is ample. Karen Dent meets Gary Thompson, the man helping to transform some of the region's best ideas into products people want to buy.

Falling off a motocross bike when he was 12 and bouncing along the back street cobbles on his face. My mate thought I was literally stuck to the floor at the time. I got up and walked back and said: Ive come off the bike then bang, out, gone put Thompson into a coma. The education he missed because of the accident meant he left school with just two O-Levels. But he already knew what he wanted to do.

I became an apprentice and I was the last one to do a four-year apprenticeship as a toolmaker. But because my brothers were into engineering our Colin when he was alive was working at Black and Decker as a model maker so I actually learned to use a lathe and a milling machine at the age of nine and 10-years-old, he said.

I helped him build parts for a steam train, so the engineering skills came from very, very early on.

I went through the four-year apprenticeship and I went to college a full day and then three nights a week just to actually improve myself. I left college in 1987 and I spent two years in maintenance and five years on the bench in the tool room. It was probably the best training ever, because you were training with guys whod done the job for years and years.

Later he returned to college to take design qualifications and now, education and encouraging new talent is very close to Thompsons heart.

I work with Gateshead educational. Business Link and I go out to the schools in the Gateshead area. Were starting to work with North Tyneside and Newcastle, and we work in Durham, with Durham Youth Enterprise.

The youngest of four sons, whose mother died when he was nine, Thompson is also close to what he calls his Sunday family.

I started playing American football and it was a relaxation, he says. I used to play rugby but I was a bit on the heavy handed side. I played American football for 11 years and got a lot of injuries in the process but we had such a good laugh.

They became my Sunday family, lads who I grew up with on the football field, I still see now. Its strange reminiscing about the old days we say I used to run 10 yards in a second, I couldnt even do it in a car now!

I lost 14 teeth playing football, and that was with a helmet on and a gumshield. Ive still got the helmet, its in the office. Ive had 154 bones broken in my body through sports and different things Ive done.

His passion for the game also meant he turned down the chance of making a career in music. A keen singer who used to work the clubs, he won the Vaux Breweries best entertainer in the region in 1995 and 1996 and was offered the opportunity to make a go of it professionally.

I had a range of about 540 songs and I turned a recording contract down in 95. I turned it down because I was playing football, he said.

People were like are you mad - a recording contract with Sony, American football on a Sunday? And you chose the football.

He stopped singing for a few years but will be back with a microphone in his hand to raise s1,000 for Mencap later this year. Hes even vowed to wear a kilt for his performance as part of the Newcastle Idol competition at the Other Rooms in the city on July 2.

I like to take enjoyment in everything I do, says Thompson, who is also a fan of practical jokes and Austin Powers films.

I never ever want to get in that position where its too serious. Ive been in jobs like that and Ive seen people fall down because they take it too serious, they stress out at home. I believe in flexible working. If people need things sorting out, then go and sort it and come back, youre a lot less stressed then. Ive worked in so many environments and Ive worked in some nightmare places.

I remember when I served my time, it was a case of you did as you were told and Im going back so many years and you had to get the job done.

Its probably why I dont sleep that much because for four years in a row I worked seven days a week, 16, 17 hours a day and that was to get a machine put in a factory, to make sure it ran so the jobs were still there, otherwise the whole company couldve gone down.

We have a really good laugh [at C2M]. Weve got Sky movies in the office. Sometimes in the afternoon, we just stop and shut up and watch a film and get everybody round and have a good team rapport.

Youve got to theres so many people whove been in my situation where theyve started their own company and they get so stressed out, and so hassled and so aggrieved. We all have stress and we all have to deal with it in our own way.

Thompson says his lifestyle now has slowed down, even though he never seems to stop. He had to take control of his stress levels after suffering a couple of strokes.

In 1998, I had a stroke - it wasnt too bad. In 2000, I had another one, which knocked me totally, he says. I lost my speech and everything for three months. I was totally debilitated. I couldnt talk, I couldnt get a sentence together. It was a struggle to get back round again.

I went through all of that and started back doing what Im doing. Its amazing how many people complain about how difficult their life it.

If you went through half of the stuff that Ive been through, you would just kick yourself. Whats going to happen next?

I mean, I had a stroke last September I discharged myself from the QE [Queen Elizabeth Hospital].

I walked out because I thought Im living on the edge every day. Take every day as it comes.

Ive got two mottos: one comes from engineering years ago its a case of were good at what we do but not how we do it.

We teach everybody else how to be better at stuff and then never take our own lessons, and thats why England has gone back over from the manufacture and design point of view because we show everybody else all our tricks and then we dont take heed of what we taught them.

And the last one, which has come over the last year: just show one random act of kindness a day and make somebody smile and youll be better for it.