executive director Sound Business, Inc. (SBI) CHARLES THOMPSON is the father of countless urban success stories. As director and founder of Sound Business, Inc., a not-for-profit educational services organization, he has touched the lives of thousands of New York City high-school students during his 18 years at West Harlem's A. Philip Randolph High School—and has channeled many of them into educational and career paths that they otherwise might never have imagined. In New York’s public schools, beset with instability and a scarcity of resources, longevity is a rare virtue. Since 1991, when Thompson put down his stakes at A. Philip Randolph Campus High School in Harlem, he has worked with six different principals; the city’s school system has been buffeted by changes wrought by six different chancellors. Through it all, SBI has been Randolph’s constant (an extracurricular anchor) that typically enrolls 15 percent of the school’s 1,200-1,500 students, in its College and Career Preparatory Institute (known as Career Prep) and presents to the entire student body at 4 or more events throughout the year. Though not a Department of Education staff member, he has become—in the words of Nathalie McFarlane, a former Randolph principal—"a key part of the school's fabric.” Or as Tim Simonds, a former Randolph assistant principal, put it: “Charles is a quintessential educator. For him it’s not a vocation, it’s an invocation.” A former secondary school teacher and choral music director in Baltimore County, Maryland, Thompson also spent five years in the corporate world as a sales executive for a linen manufacturer in New York City. In 1987, enlisted by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, he became executive director of a management trainee program for youth of color pursuing non-performance careers within the music entertainment industry—and found a calling. Four years later, upon founding SBI and moving to Randolph, he would draw upon his varied experience in education, business, and music to develop Career Prep as a unique complement to Randolph’s college preparatory curriculum, then considered one of the more rigorous in New York. From SBI’s birth to the present day, as Nathalie McFarlane noted, Thompson’s unwavering focus and concern has been “always for the students—what can we do to help them, to move them forward, to make them better, more well-rounded people.” Charles Thompson is a native of Lynchburg, Virginia. He is a graduate of Delaware State University. In 1980, Charles and his wife, Jean Mack, moved from Baltimore, Maryland to New York City, where they have resided in Manhattan's East Village. They are the parents of three children, all of whom attended New York City public schools.

executive director Sound Business, Inc. (SBI)

CHARLES THOMPSON is the father of countless urban success stories. As director and founder of Sound Business, Inc., a not-for-profit educational services organization, he has touched the lives of thousands of New York City high-school students during his 18 years at West Harlem's A. Philip Randolph High School—and has channeled many of them into educational and career paths that they otherwise might never have imagined.

In New York’s public schools, beset with instability and a scarcity of resources, longevity is a rare virtue. Since 1991, when Thompson put down his stakes at A. Philip Randolph Campus High School in Harlem, he has worked with six different principals; the city’s school system has been buffeted by changes wrought by six different chancellors. Through it all, SBI has been Randolph’s constant (an extracurricular anchor) that typically enrolls 15 percent of the school’s 1,200-1,500 students, in its College and Career Preparatory Institute (known as Career Prep) and presents to the entire student body at 4 or more events throughout the year. Though not a Department of Education staff member, he has become—in the words of Nathalie McFarlane, a former Randolph principal—"a key part of the school's fabric.”

Or as Tim Simonds, a former Randolph assistant principal, put it: “Charles is a quintessential educator. For him it’s not a vocation, it’s an invocation.”

A former secondary school teacher and choral music director in Baltimore County, Maryland, Thompson also spent five years in the corporate world as a sales executive for a linen manufacturer in New York City. In 1987, enlisted by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, he became executive director of a management trainee program for youth of color pursuing non-performance careers within the music entertainment industry—and found a calling. Four years later, upon founding SBI and moving to Randolph, he would draw upon his varied experience in education, business, and music to develop Career Prep as a unique complement to Randolph’s college preparatory curriculum, then considered one of the more rigorous in New York.

From SBI’s birth to the present day, as Nathalie McFarlane noted, Thompson’s unwavering focus and concern has been “always for the students—what can we do to help them, to move them forward, to make them better, more well-rounded people.”

Charles Thompson is a native of Lynchburg, Virginia. He is a graduate of Delaware State University. In 1980, Charles and his wife, Jean Mack, moved from Baltimore, Maryland to New York City, where they have resided in Manhattan's East Village. They are the parents of three children, all of whom attended New York City public schools.