Gregory Thornton

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1953 to a working class family. My father was a businessman (haberdasher) who attributed his success to knowing his product, its market and paying attention to the details. He was a very generous man but insisted that I earn and pay for every thing I wanted or needed with few exceptions. My mother doted on my father as well as myself and my siblings. She made sure that we were healthy, happy and that our house was clean, well stocked and comfortable.

My early interests included sports, technology and science fiction (novels and movies). I earned a Masters degree in computer science with a concentration in electronic engineering and played football in high school and college (middle linebacker). I met my wife in college. She’s beautiful, intelligent and a bit adventurous. We’ve been happily married for 33 years and together we’ve raised two beautiful children, Terrence an electronic engineer and Charrissa a registered nurse that have given us 3 cherished grandsons.
I have for 35 years worked in the employ of fortune 500 companies such as the Monet Group, Merck Medical and the New York Times gaining experience as a bench tech, I.T. manager and ultimately I.T. Director. In 1998 I founded Competech Computer & Network Services and in 2003 I founded Competech SmartCard Solutions Inc. where we develop smart card driven solutions for loyalty programs, physical logical access and our flagship product "the HealthSmartID card system" to address the many security and interoperability issues faced by the ever expanding healthcare market here in America.
I and my team have consulted for companies in Europe and Africa leading the design and development of the Medical Smart Card for Medical Security Card Deutschland and installing and configuring the entire I.T. infrastructure for the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo where the HealthSmartID card system was deployed and tested with excellent results.
“The application of smart card technology is limited only by the imagination”
Gregory Thornton