Dr. Thomasson received undergraduate and masters degrees from Missouri University  and his Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Wisconsin.  He formed TPA in 1991.  Dr. Thomasson previously was with Shell Oil Company for seventeen years.  Positions during that time included Manager of Geologic Research for Shell Development Company,  Manager of Texas, Louisiana and Atlantic Offshore Division, Manager (for Shell Oil Company in the United States) of Forecasting, Planning and Economics, and Manager of Strategic Planning for Shell International Petroleum Corporation, London, England.  This gave him a broad socio- political-economic business perspective.  His last position with Shell was as Chief Geologist for Shell Oil U.S.A. where he was responsible for the technical quality of Shell's geological exploration.

Dr. Thomasson is on the Board of Trustees of the American Geological Institute Foundation, gives lectures yearly at various universities in the U.S. and abroad, and was a Distinguished Lecturer on Stratigraphic Geophysics for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and recently received AAPG’s highest award for service, The Michael T. Halbouty Award.  Dr. Thomasson is past-president of the AAPG and the American Geological Institute.  He is a Certified Petroleum Geologist (No. 5496) and a Certified Petroleum Geophysicist (No. 75).

Dr. Thomasson has been highly successful over the years at directing and integrating teams of explorationists.  At Shell over 5 trillion cubic feet of gas equivalent were discovered under his direction.  While at McCormick Oil and Gas, and as President of Spectrum Oil and Gas and Pend Oreille Oil Company he had a better than 25% discovery ratio and several large (greater than 50 Billion Cubic Feet of Gas equivalent) fields were both discovered and produced under his direction.  During the 19 year history of Thomasson Partner Associates, Inc., TPA and its partners have spent $405 million to find over 800 billion CFGE proved producing for an all in finding and development cost of $0.51 per MCF.