About Larry W. Thomas
Larry retired as a Captain from the U.S. Army in 2000 after almost 23 years of service. During his career, he was always looking for ways to save U.S. taxpayer’s money and to prevent fraud.
During his first eight years, he was an airplane mechanic and inspector with several Army Intelligence units. Based on his test scores, he was selected for duty with Army Intelligence before contracting with the Army. During this time, he began to learn about saving taxpayer money by finding innovative ways to reduce costs. He left active duty and entered the Army Reserve system in 1996 while attending college and being part of the Army ROTC program. He re-entered the Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1998, where he immediately positively impacted his unit’s readiness. He always operates within his given budget and finds ways to save money and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. During his final assignment, he managed the largest GSA fleet of vehicles in the Southeast and reduced costs by finding and stopping abuse and changing procedures to minimize vehicle damage.
After retiring, he became a defense contractor for the Army Reserve’s Logistics Division, where he developed an ERP solution that saved millions of dollars. One of his many solutions pulled each reserve unit’s entire list of repair parts into a central database. Using that database, needed repair parts near the team in need could be quickly transferred, and considerable savings to the government could soon return the equipment to service. He spent almost ten years as a defense contractor until Fort McPherson closed, and he opted not to move to Fort Bragg as the Program Manager for the new contract.
After leaving that position, he obtained a Project Management Professional Certification. He took a position as the Program Manager for an international hospitality company working with major hotels and resort chains like Marriott, Starwood, Disney Orlando, Disney Paris, and the casinos in Las Vegas, as well as booking sites like Expedia, Hotwire, and Priceline. Moving to Powder Springs in 2017 and taking early retirement in 2018, he began his latest venture, helping families learn about their ancestors. He gets some of his most excellent satisfaction from helping descendants of formerly enslaved people settle estates, some of which were over a century ago.
Larry was married to Karen Grace Meeneghan for almost 32 years before she passed away in 2011. He has two sons and six wonderful grandchildren. He attends Elevate Christian Church in Hiram.