Jim Thompson
Cave Research Scientist

Jim Thompson, a former US Navy Tactical Air Controller, is a commercial multi engine pilot and conducts airborne thermography from his hot air balloon "Flourish." He is also an advanced open water instructor and a master scuba diver.

He retired from over 25 years of owning a nationwide disaster restoration company which specialized in cleaning up after industrial catastrophes and now devotes his time to infrared research using thermography to locate caves and working on his captains license at sea. He also works as an instructor at a  dive shop in Clearwater, Florida.

Jim's papers into thermographic research are published in the US and abroad.  As a member of the NASA Atacama Desert Science Team 2006, he conducted extensive thermographic research of cave entrances in the Atacama Desert Chile. He was on the 2007 and 2008 Spaceward Bound Expeditions to the Mojave Desert in California,  and was the expedition photographer for Pavilion Lake 2008. He will be researching thermography of cave entrances as an analog for Mars during Mojave 2009.

He is the chairman of the South West Florida Chapter of The Explorers Clubb and a lifetime member of the National Speleological Society and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.