- Rep. Jason Thompson credits several mentors with helping him learn the skills that helped him succeed in business.
- Through his new organization, Thompson now wants to help the next generation of students learn leadership skills.
SALT LAKE CITY — Before founding a successful pest control company in Logan and being elected to the Utah House of Representatives, Rep. Jason Thompson had to grow up quickly.
A south Florida resident, Thompson bounced around between several high schools and said he found himself practically living on his own from the age of 16 on. He spent nights on couches for a time before eventually moving in with a family that introduced him to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He finished high school in Houston — his fourth school in four years — and landed an internship in Washington thanks to a connection his father had to a congresswoman from the Fort Lauderdale area. Thompson attended a breakfast where then-Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch delivered a keynote speech, and although he had never heard of the senator, he sought him out afterward to connect over the religion they shared.
"I had no idea who Orrin Hatch was at this time, but I'm not bashful, so I walked up to him after ... and I told him, 'Hey, I just joined the ... church a couple months ago," Thompson recalled.
For the rest of his internship, Thompson said he stayed with the Hatches each Saturday evening and attended church at their Virginia ward in the morning.
"This is one of the first examples in my life where a leader showed up," Thompson said. "They saw me. They got to know me. They realized my potential and, most importantly, they helped me to realize that myself. ... Until he passed away, (he) played an instrumental role in my life."
It wasn't the last time a mentor helped Thompson move up in the world. Though he scraped by with a high school grade point average that was only just good enough to graduate, he enrolled in what was then Utah Valley State College and finished his first year of school with a near-perfect academic record.
Another mentor helped Thompson pay his tuition and checked in on him twice each month, helping him set goals and build a study routine. After a successful first year, Thompson transferred to Brigham Young University, where he went on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees.
Thompson went on to found Fox Pest Control in Logan, which he owned for nearly 12 years before selling it in 2024. He was elected to the House in 2024 as a Republican representing River Heights in Cache County.
Now, Thompson is looking to play a similar role as his mentors played by helping young people learn the leadership skills that helped him reach his potential. He announced the launch of a nonprofit, Legacy Forward Foundation, on Wednesday, which aims to promote leadership training for students and teachers in schools.
"(People say) the American dream is dead, but listen, we're here for each other," he said. "I wouldn't be here if people didn't step up. ... This is about stepping up. How can you do something good? And that's what we're trying to do at Legacy Forward is just initiative those conversations, get those people talking differently."
Thompson said he was inspired in part by reading "The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life" by David Brooks, which focused on building a legacy not based on wealth but based on impact.
"What problems did you work to solve? How did you bring people together?" he said. "We're in a very divisive time in our country. I think we need more unifiers bringing people together."
The organization will launch with a focus on several counties in northern Utah and help schools find funding to develop leadership curriculum. And as students learn to take on leadership roles, Thompson suspects they will end up improving in other aspects of educational and social life, as he did.
"We need to draw out these mentors," he said. "We need to draw out the Orrin Hatches. ... I can think of a whole bunch of other people in my community that if we brought to the table and they were involved on a community level with mentoring and helping to provide guidance for these kids, we really start to multiply and compound some really good things that I think society is missing."
