Thomas was raised in the shadow of an extinct volcano in the heart of the English countryside, amidst bronze age earthworks and Roman ruins, Welsh mountains weeping on the horizon. He played rugby, painted his fingernails black, made hedgerow wine and worked at the village pub.

After a few years at Oxford, and then in London, working for a bank and studying medieval literature, art & history, Thomas moved to Beijing for more than a decade. These were days of economic research, cheap cold beer, cumin-spiced lamb skewers, thick chewy noodles and cycling along ancient alleyways past crumbling palaces of Qing dynasty bannermen, all huddled beneath the glazed monoliths of modern China.

Now living in Portland, still writing economics, running a neighborhood gym and founding our local business association, Kernside, Thomas thinks a lot about how shared myth-making and countless small acts of joy against entropy can lift us all up together as a community.