Dr. Gordon Thomas is the current General Chairman of the conference and Chairman of the Executive Committee. He retired as Head of PSDB's facility at Langhurst, near Horsham, in August 2003. He was responsible for managing the part of the Branch that deals with physical security and for other corporate areas of work.
Prior to his appointment to this post, Gordon worked for 11 years as an administrator in the Home Office, working on subjects as diverse as Sunday trading legislation, mentally disordered offenders, race relations and Next Steps Agencies.
Gordon graduated from King's College London in 1966 with a degree in physics and took his PhD in nuclear physics in 1969. He then worked in nuclear physics research at the Rutherford Laboratory, Chilton until 1972 when he joined the Home Office to conduct research and development work on the detection of fingerprints at scenes of crime. This was followed by three years running the Home Office Automatic Fingerprint Recognition project to the stage which led to the system being implemented in New Scotland Yard.
Gordon is now an author of historical novels. His first novel, ‘The Harpist of Madrid’, is based on the life of Juan Hidalgo, the famous 17th century Spanish composer. His second, ‘The Emerald of Burgos’, is about the adventures of a 16th century lady of pleasure and is to be published in 2014.
Gordon lives with his wife, Janet, in Worcester Park which is in the London Borough of Sutton, Surrey, England