Greg Thompson - ‘Be prepared’… to take it on and win
We have him to thank for leading the charge to preserve the beautiful central Queenstown Park Street Reserve and protecting the district’s outstanding natural landscapes, and, at 72, Greg Thompson is still advocating for the local environment.
Raised in Wellington, by his Scots College years Greg had already earned a wad of scouting and leadership awards, including a Gold Duke of Edinburgh award and the Queen’s Scout award. As an adult Scout Leader he earned Scouting’s Medal of Merit.
An inquisitive kid with a love of the outdoors Greg had a free reign growing up, building highly unsafe flying foxes with the neighbours’ kids and transforming the family garage into a neighbourhood theatre.
A strong science bent led him to Victoria University where he completed a Degree in Biochemistry, then teaching qualifications, landing his first job at Southland’s Menzies College in 1974. Here he met wife of 43 years Janette, a District Cub Leader. Renowned for making things work, Greg joined some southern ingenuity in a unique fundraising effort to build a local Scout Den. Drums of fat from the Mataura Freezing Works, strewn across the paddocks after a big flood the previous year, were retrieved and sold back to the works.
A move to Patea as head of science followed before Greg scored that role at Wakatipu High School in 1982. “It was a fantastic environment with so many opportunities. You could put down roots and buy a house here.” They bought a Queenstown Hill section off Hilary and Graeme Finnie for $22,500.
As experienced scout leaders they were both snapped up by the local group.
Teaching here for 13 years, affectionately known as ‘T’ by students, Greg once tried his own science experiment making home brew in the school biology incubator. “One day a senior student jokingly went to open the incubator, saying, ‘T, what you got in there – home brew? She opened the door and to her surprise there was home brew,” grins Greg.
On another occasion students came rushing into his lab to report somebody smoking in the boys’ loo. “We filled a big bucket with water and crept outside tossing it up and through the open window, and out came an embarrassed, sodden senior teacher – a secret smoker.”
Greg quickly developed a knack with early Apple Computers at school. “I loved it so I approached Apple and asked if I could sell them in our region.” Just like that he got the nod. “It was just before Steve Jobs came back with the iMac and then that really took off.” Gradually Greg taught less and sold more – the only one with rights to sell Apple in Central Otago for 15 years.
Not long after arriving in town an irate Greg heard that the government-owned Tourist Hotel Corporation (THC) was planning to build a big flashy hotel encroaching onto downtown Queenstown Gardens’ Park Street Reserve. He teamed up with a group of little old ladies in tennis shoes, soon renowned as local environmental heroes, and they took on the big boys as part of the Guardians of the Reserve group, which Greg became chairman of.
Many locals were outraged. “We thought why should a corporate organisation take over a precious reserve?”
Word got out about the 1986 court battle and before long then Nelson lawyer Jon Jackson, now a highly respected, long-time Environment Court judge, phoned Greg offering his services pro-bono to represent them.
“We won just before Christmas and I was at my parents’. I was interviewed on TV on my parents’ back lawn, which excited my mother no end.”
The group also fought hard in the early 1990s to ensure local Outstanding Natural Landscapes were protected.
Greg’s served backstage for Showbiz Queenstown, first joining the Queenstown Musical and Operatic Society 41 years ago for The Sound of Music, soon becoming president and treasurer. New to town the nun antics had him stumped. “Nuns arrived who weren’t in the show, one (Sister Mary Eugene) changing to play the housekeeper, while other cast arrived and changed to become nuns,” he grins. By 1988 Greg had convinced the society to hire professional directors. “That year ‘Joseph’ was a sell-out and we’ve never looked back.” Now a life member he also has a Merit Award from the Musical Theatre Federation of NZ.
He’s been president, secretary and an active member of Queenstown Lions since the mid-1990s, and is a Margaret Templeton Educational Trust trustee.
In 2010 Greg sold his Apple business and worked for Customs at Queenstown Airport, about the time he and Janette purchased at Quail Rise.
Still not sitting back, in 2016 he and neighbour Kerry Dunlop approached then NZTA suggesting an underpass as a solution to the increasingly dangerous Tucker Beach Road-State Highway intersection. Two years later it was operating. “They acknowledged that intersection was the fastest growing volume of traffic in NZ at the time.”
These days he’s leading the Quail Rise community charge clearing a reserve and planting natives, something he’s passionate about as a Whakatipu Reforestation Trust volunteer.
