Ellington

Michael Thomas is a bit of a turnaround specialist.

As the vice president of finance and business at Jackson State University, he helped turn a $1.2 million deficit in the college's reserve fund into reserves of $15 million in four years. Before that, he was the numbers guru for Jackson Public Schools for 16 years. At JSU and JPS, both public-sector organizations, Thomas said he was good at uncovering and cutting out inefficiencies.

In his new role as president of three companies under the Systems Group, Thomas, 52, doesn't have to turn the companies around, so he can focus most of his time and energy on growing and streamlining the businesses.

"These are well-functioning companies," Thomas said..

Thomas departed from Jackson State at the end of July and will run the day-to-day operations of Systems Electro Coating, a Gluckstadt-based company that rust-proofs frames for Nissan's Canton plant,and the company's business- and IT-consulting companies. Systems also has a Mantachie plant that supplies seats for Toyota's Blue Springs operations, but Thomas will not oversee operations there.

Thomas hopes to grow the consulting business to offer turn-around services to troubled school districts and municipalities, he said.

Thomas grew up in Natchez and attended Jackson State University, where he received a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1985. After college, he worked for the Mississippi state auditor's office before going to JPS in 1994. Jackson businessman and JSU business school Dean Bill Cooley founded Systems in 1977; Thomas is taking over as president for Toni Cooley, whom the board of directors recently promoted to chief executive officer.

The Systems position "was the proverbial offer I couldn't refuse," Thomas said. In his first few weeks on the job, Thomas has been taking stock of the companies and will be looking for opportunities to expand and improve operations. It was an opportunity he seized at Jackson State. Helping grow the university's reserves helped the university expand with a campus Starbucks, Apple and UPS stores, as well as helped provide funding to renovate a building downtown, donated by the Legislature to the university, despite a lagging national economy and little support from the state.

"In the public sector, public bodies tend to continue to operate even if they operate inefficiently," said Thomas, who lives in Madison with his wife, Shari. The couple has five children.

"The more efficient an organization is, the more money you can devote to the core mission of that organization," Thomas said. "There's a whole lot of incentive in the private area to improve efficiency as quickly as possible."