Outside the Boardroom
What's Next For Apprentice Candidate Alex Thomason
It was a high-stakes moment in Trump Tower. Alex Thomason �00 sat across the boardroom table from real estate mogul Donald Trump. Cameras zoomed in for close-ups of Thomason � one of the final four contestants on NBC�s hit reality show �The Apprentice� � when Trump began his interrogation. �Has losing gotten so commonplace to you?� the notorious businessman
and TV personality asked, scowling.
True, Thomason�s team had lost two challenges
under his leadership, but he wasn�t going to go down without a fight. �When you purchased
the New Jersey Generals, Herschel Walker was on that team, and they had four wins and 14 losses,� he argued. �It didn�t mean Walker wasn�t destined to be an MVP for the NFL.�
Thomason had a point. But Trump wasn�t sold. �Alex, you�re fired,� he finally said.
Those words may have sealed Thomason�s fate on the third season of �The Apprentice,� but when the 29-year-old attorney hailed a taxi from Trump Tower that night, he seemed relieved, even excited. The would-be apprentice says he was ready to get on with his life.
Premiering in January 2004, �The Apprentice� has become one of the highest rated reality shows in the nation � second only
to �American Idol.� This past season brought 18 contestants to New York City, where they battled during 16 grueling weeks
for the chance to run one of Donald Trump�s businesses and enjoy a six-figure salary. Contestants used their skills, street-smarts, and education to outwit each other.
If you tuned in, there�s a lot more to Alex Thomason than his on-screen suit-and-tie persona. For starters, the Seattle Pacific University alumnus is into metal sculpting; crazy about surfing; keeps a regular lunch date with a group of fun-loving 90-year-olds; and says that if he could afford it, he would quit his job
and play with kids all day.
For much of his life, the only Big Apple on Thomason�s horizon
was his family�s apple farm in Eastern Washington. �It�s one of the few places I know where conversations among friends and strangers begin with the same phrase, �What can I do for you?�� he says. It was on long walks in the orchard that Thomason�s father taught him a formative lesson: �If you�re going to dream, dream big or don�t bother.�
Now a deputy assistant
attorney for the King County (Washington) Prosecuting Attorney�s
Office, Thomason recently imparted his own advice to a group of SPU seniors. �Many of you are graduating, and you are probably incredibly qualified,� he said. �But let me tell you what�s going to happen when you graduate.
You�re going to get a job, and to begin with, you�ll have to open mail and get coffee for people. That�s the reality. And the only way it will be an impediment to you is if you�re too prideful.�
With his trademark open-book style, Thomason told the students about his post-SPU adventures. �I lived in a barn in Duvall for a while, built a horse fence, and cleared land before I took a job with a lobbying organization
in Washington, D.C. Once there, I spent the first few months answering phones, opening
mail, and getting coffee. At first I was really mad. I was like,
�I have two degrees, and I have a $60 haircut. Why should I be doing this kind of work?� I realized I had a pride issue.�
Thomason says he made some changes. �I started going around the office and asking everyone, �Do you need anything done?� �Do you want coffee?� �Do you need copies made?� It humbled me.�
By the following year, Thomason was home in Seattle pursuing
his next big challenge: law school. He graduated and passed the Washington State Bar Exam last spring, and as any new attorney can attest, competition for a good job was stiff. When he heard about an open casting call for �The Apprentice,� he thought, Why not?
�More than a thousand people showed up that day, and
officials pulled us into a room in groups of 15 while the director evaluated us,� he says. Afterward, an NBC staffer gave Thomason
the news: He had made the cut.
In the top-secret world of reality TV, Thomason couldn�t tell a soul about his new opportunity. But how do you disappear for three months of taping without family and friends catching on? Luckily, Thomason�s history of varied career pursuits made his alibi plausible. �I had applied to be a special agent with the FBI, and was waiting for the final panel interview to be scheduled,�
he says. �I felt bad about lying, but I just told people that the FBI needed me to go to language/spy school down in California.�
Now that �The Apprentice� is over, everyone, it seems, has a question for Thomason. Was the editing fair? Not really, he says, noting an episode that portrayed him napping while his teammate,
Kendra, stayed up all night working on a team project:
�I really only slept for about a half hour, and stayed up the rest
of the night. But the episode was edited to make Kendra look like she was working harder than anyone else.�
Was it difficult living with cameras in your face every moment of the day? �Not for me,� says Thomason. �I just ignored them.� And what were the other contestants really like? �Every person on the show was tough as nails,� he says. �They could eat you alive.�
Thomason was up for the challenge, however. After all, he isn�t exactly a �yes-sir� kind of guy. In a senior-level class at
Seattle Pacific, he found himself in passionate disagreement with a professor. So he staged his own kind of protest. �I turned my desk around to face the window,� he remembers. And Trump?
�I think I was the only person who didn�t come to the show
worshipping him,� states Thomason.
He wasn�t worried about what people would think of him on �The Apprentice.� �I knew that people might love me or hate my guts,� he says. �There was nothing I could do about it.�
There was something, however, that did concern him � a lot. �I was worried about morally failing on the show,� he confides. �I was going to be living with a bunch of partying guys and beautiful women. I was fearful of that, and afraid I�d be infected by the virus of greed.�
So Thomason turned to prayer. �I prayed that I would be a stone pillar anchored on the shore of the ocean,� he says. �And then when this huge wave came in, it didn�t knock me off my feet.�
He credits his Seattle Pacific education
in part for the boldness to act on his convictions � and
the discipline to pray. �At SPU, I knew all of this stuff about Christianity, but I didn�t know how to pray,� the former theology major recalls. So he turned to Professor of History Alberto
Ferreiro. They met three times a week for the next year, praying and talking about Christian discipleship.
Thomason was open about his faith with contestants on �The Apprentice,� too. He held morning Bible studies with Chris, a 21-year-old who struggled to control his temper on the show. Thomason also discussed the book of Revelation with Kendra, now Trump�s new apprentice.
�Alex has always been somebody who is willing to stand up for his beliefs,� says Jonathon Sharpe �00, who met Thomason as a student at Seattle Pacific. �He puts himself out there in the ring. And if he has a setback, it�s only going to refine him and make him stronger.�
What�s next for Thomason? For now, he�s running at a mile-a-minute pace: marketing a new product (hint: it was on the show) and serving as the national spokesperson for Degree deodorant.
�I know that God has plans for me,� he says, noting an interest in politics and a heart for rural America.
�There�s this insensitivity in cities,� says Thomason, a native of Brewster, Washington. �When I was in law school, a professor was giving an example in class. �Say you had a really stupid person,� he said, �like a farmer from Eastern Washington.� That really made me angry.�
Thomason brought that same view of humanity to the boardroom when
he said this to a somewhat shocked Trump: �I�m just as intimidated by
you as I am by the guys my dad hired
to work the tractors on our farm. I learned to respect everyone equally. Nobody�s greater, nobody�s less, we�re all the same.�
Fired, yes. But Thomason says he�s not deterred. He compares
his time on �The Apprentice� to growing up on his family�s farm, where he occasionally forgot to put oil in tractor engines, once blew up a main waterline, and burned himself with fertilizer.
�My multiple failures taught me that adversity reveals the measure of a man.�
He may not be the new hot-shot apprentice on Fifth Avenue, but one thing is certain: Alex Thomason�s journey didn�t end at Trump Tower.
BY SARAH JIO
PHOTOS BY RICHARD BROWN
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