 Following his honorable discharge, he worked briefly for the Allstate Insurance Company before moving to the Ford Motor Company, where he spent ten years with Ford's Lincoln-Mercury division prior to joining Nissan.Soon after arriving at Nissan Thomas was running its sales operations, and in a 1988 reorganization that divided the company into three entities (Nissan, Infiniti and parts and service) Thomas was made a vice president and head of the Nissan division.In 1993 he succeeded Thomas Mignanelli as corporate president and CEO when Mignanelli retired after heart surgery.