About Glenn

Glenn Thompson
BioMarch 2026

Professional Background

Glenn Thompson is a geologist who grew up on the east coast of the United States and had a great love of fishing, diving, and adventure. He got his PhD in Hydrogeology in 1977 From Indiana University and took his first professional job in 1977 as an assistant professor of hydrogeology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He left the University of Arizona in 1984 to start his own environmental consulting company called Tracer Research Corporation. Eighteen years later, in 2002, he sold his company to Praxair Inc, and 4 years after the sale, at age 60, he retired from his former professional life to begin a new life in which he had more time to devote to photography and other hobbies.

Beginning photography

As a graduate student, Glenn first became interested in photography as a means of capturing the exciting moments of his cave exploring adventures. While in his master’s program at Memphis State University he took to exploring underwater caves. His first camera was a “Kodak Instamatic” carried underwater in a mayonnaise jar. In 1972 he convinced the US Forest Service to pay him to explore, map, and photography one-mile stretch of water-filled cave in the Blanchard Springs Cavern System in Mountain View, Arkansas. For that they provided him a Nikonos underwater camera. Those underwater photos he took are still on display in the Visitor Information Center at the Cavern Entrance. In the 40 plus years since that time, there have been no other photos taken in the underwater portion of Blanchard Springs because the Forest Service has considered the area too dangerous to reenter.

Present Photography

In 1995 Glenn married Martha, a Mexican woman he met in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico where she worked. Martha is an artist passionate about nature and wildlife. During the last 20 years, most of Glenn’s photography has been planned largely to bring attention to endangered species, especially fish in the Gulf of California, as well as some trout species of the Western United States.