Are We There Yet?
The Question TRIP.com Couldn’t Answer for Brian Thomson

Serendipitous is one way to describe Brian Thomson’s journey since graduating from CC in 1985. Successful, another. Lucky, perhaps. Marked by sudden shifts — definitely.

After four years at CC, the international relations major wanted to be a political analyst for the CIA, but they placed him in satellite imagery analysis. A visit through a dark lab with people hunched over images dissuaded him, and he soon headed to Tufts’ Fletcher School to get a degree in international security studies. There, his interests shifted; he finished with a master’s in international business before heading to the University of Virginia for a law degree.

In the early ’90s, Thomson started working at U.S. West’s interactive services consulting group. He identified a market niche for business travel among the emerging opportunities of the Internet, and with a colleague, developed the Web site TRIP.com.

The small Web site became autonomous and in four years, grew from six employees and annual revenue of $500,000 to over 250 employees and annual revenue of $28 million. TRIP.com became the third-largest travel site on the Web and the dominant interactive service in business travel.

In 2000, Thomson and his board of directors decided to sell TRIP.com rather than risk an initial public stock offering. It was at this point, Thomson says, that he found himself reflecting on the commencement speech at his CC graduation nearly 20 years earlier.

“David McCullough talked about what it meant to progress into the real world, how to live a sound family life and to listen to the leaves rustle on the porch in the fall, and how the totality of these experiences lead to a fruitful life,” Thomson recalls. “And he said that at some time in your life, you should devote significant time to community service. I thought about it after college, and 20 years later, I had the time and resources.”

Thomson invested his money and business skills in the Ethan James Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on pediatric health care. It’s been a cultural shift. In business, he faced issues arising from “growing fast in an immature industry where revenue streams really hadn’t been tested.” Now he works with volunteers. “There are wonderful hearts that work at these organizations with the best of intentions, but they are not used to operating in a disciplined business fashion. I have to temper my business skills to adjust to this nonprofit world,” he says.

While the last two decades have brought Thomson success and challenge, he describes his greatest accomplishment as his relationships with his wife and 2-year-old daughter. In both business and life, Thomson says, the key is to persevere. “As Thomas Jefferson said, ‘I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it.’”